pros: more games to watch to fill in the gaps between Split 1 and Masters Toronto (iirc), orgs get more income
cons: ethical issues, MIGHT have reduced production quality (since most broadcast talent does not agree with Valorant joining EWC), might be promoted an absurd amount of times in official VCT broadcasts (especially in international events), and it might be as bad as sportswashing.
so who wins here?
Interesting take because they tried so hard to better their image with all kinds of sports (football, F1, esports) but the target audience's opinion, which is Western demographics' hasn't really changed (we can see the overall reaction to these events)
Why I said they're the target audience because other regions I think have a relatively positive or at least neutral image of Saudi. Also, western audiences have the money to spend on Saudi businesses.
Yeah they picked the wrong thing (sports). Should've gone for "culture" like the U.S. or South Korea, but their ways (religion/traditions) wouldn't do well in the west anyway, so I dont see how they could win the rebrand thing.
The only "good press" they get recently is solely by being arabs while there is a genocide against arabs being supported by said West.
u just CANNOT compare the atrocities committed by the saudi arabia with the US. for starters, the events held in the saudi are directly funded by MBS's family which runs the current government in saudi whereas in the US, most of the events are held by private companies. second, US doesnt fucking shoot at refugees in the mexican border like the saudis do with the yemenese refugees. u dont see women's right being violated here in US and u dont fucking see someone get executed for just tweeting against the government in the US with 10 followers. like the list goes on and u compare this with the funding of genocide? like i agree thats bad too but the other side is just HELL
Basically (this is my subjective opinion)
Many Saudi-organized events or programs are funded directly/indirectly by the government with the goal of tourism. Most of the money I think came from oil, but the government is in a bad light for the war in Yemen (CMIIW) and other stuff, so some felt that receiving money from them is in a bad taste.
the main issue here is saudi is developing at this day and age, where anything shady is cancellable. Most developed countries histories are horrendous and there are still horrific events they enable and condone, and even commit. A few decades from now on when it is fully developed will they also begin acting like america and europe and start "recognising" their mistakes.
people who complain about this shouldnt exist because they are playing a game made by riot which is a parent company of tencent. if they had their morales right they wouldnt be playing. also if they just stopped their goverment to stop buying middle east oil then they wouldnt be rich if they dont they are hypocrite and possibly showing islamophobia
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14685
sideshow made a video about it aswell(1 year ago)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIilD9qAzeA&t=2s
good for the e-sport, bad for ethics. money always prevails
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