A promotional video for the 2026 eSports World Cup has been released, and Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has been hired for it.
He starts in Paris next week World Championship in esportswhere contestants will fight for cash prizes from a fund worth 75 million dollars.
It is a competition heavily overshadowed by the ongoing World Cup, but the organizers want to give it legitimacy by being promoted by one of the most famous footballers in the world.
Yesterday, a promotional video for EWC 2026 was released, in which a Portuguese soccer player appears alongside famous esports players Faker, Zyw0o, KarlTzy and YiNuo. Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo deserved to be the face of the World Esports Championship about as much as he deserved the man of the match award last night. The link is that Ronaldo plays in Saudi Arabiaand Saudi Arabia is the organizer of the EWC 2026. That is, they are the organizers, but not the hosts, because this year, for security reasons, the competition from Saudi Arabia was transferred to France.
Hand on heart, Ronaldo is not the only face from other sports to promote esports. There’s also chess player Magnus Carlsen, for some reason. The motto of this promotion is “Greatness Recognizes Greatness”, which is an interesting idea in principle, but there is no doubt that this “recognition of esports” was accompanied by the payment of Ronaldo and Carlsen for the promotion.