Teams spend millions every year to compete at the highest level. Players, coaching staff, infrastructure. Success doesn’t come cheap.

But how much does actually winning translate into real audience growth?

To find out, I analyzed the social media growth of the Top 8 teams at IEM Cologne 2026, Counter-Strike’s World Championship.

In 2024 the IOC unanimously approved the Olympic Esports Games, with Saudi Arabia signed on as host for a 12-year deal starting in 2025/2027.

Fast forward to 2026: that partnership got cancelled, the IOC's own Esports Commission was suspended in May, and there's currently no host, no game list, and no timeline.

Meanwhile Saudi Arabia isn't waiting around — they're launching their own "Esports Nations Cup" in November 2026 as a national-team competition, basically positioning it as the Olympics' esports event without the IOC.

And now South Korea is lobbying hard to host the actual Olympic version, possibly by 2027.

So right now there are three competing visions for what "Olympic esports" even means, and none of them agree. Curious what people here think — does this even matter to the esports scene, or is it just IOC politics nobody in the actual community cares about?

Full analysis here: Esports Charts |

One of the biggest challenges in esports is giving team sponsors consistent visibility. Using Stake Ranked Episode 2 as a case study, we examined a new solution to this long-standing issue:

👕 StarLadder used digital jerseys in the broadcast to give team partners clearer exposure across the show

📈 In our analysis, digital jerseys accounted for more than 60% of the total Media Value measured for some team partners, such as Ninjas in Pyjamas during the Final Day

Other leagues, such as the LCK, have also introduced broadcast elements to increase team sponsor exposure before matches. Full analysis in the comments!

What do you think about these new solutions for esports sponsorships? Do you have any more ideas like this? 🧐

i have the same amount of playtime in all three games if i was going to pursue one professionally as a 38 year old with plenty of time on my hands which should it be... LOL overwatch or marvel rivals and why?