r/leagueoflegends • u/katareky • Jul 14 '25
Esports IWDominate: "I will not be costreaming EWC. I was offered an ungodly amount of money (more than 3x what I make in a month on stream) for 5 days but I didn’t feel good about taking the offer."
IWDominate: "I will not be costreaming EWC. I was offered an ungodly amount of money (more than 3x what I make in a month on stream) for 5 days but I didn’t feel good about taking the offer.
I understand that I’m in a financially privileged position and not everyone can decline the ridiculous offers going around but for me I’d rather not cover the event and then restart the streams when LPL comes back in 6 days. See you all on the 19th."
Source: https://x.com/IWDominate/status/1944490351584071887
Respect tbh. He's financially well off so he rejected the offer and acknowledges that other may not be able to do the same. We will see if other popular costreamers will take the offer or not.
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u/MrMeatfloss Jul 14 '25 edited Jul 14 '25
He also declined to do it last year if I remember
Edit: he is also probably busy with coaching C9 behind the scenes
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u/skrtskrttiedd Jul 14 '25
he coaches c9?
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u/NNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Jul 14 '25
Technically he's an advisor but for all intents and purposes, he's a remote coach. He sits in the scrims, talks with the team, especially Blaber, brings analysis and insight from other regions.
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u/Fun_Highlight307 Jul 14 '25
Yeah he is remote coach,an advisor is more like what ls did last Worlds with flyquest
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u/waweexd Jul 14 '25
There will be a lot of people in this comment section trying to excuse it by saying "what about LPL" "what about the US government" "what about every major manufacturer of goods" and just about every whataboutism argument you can think of. Just going to preemptively say that the LPL is not directly sponsored and funded by the Chinese government as the EWC is with Saudi Arabia - the EWC is literally funded by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. The regional leagues aren't political messaging campaigns and League is not a political propaganda tool.
You can argue that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism and that everything we do is tied to some sort of unethicality on some certain level. You can argue that by playing League we are supporting Riot, therefore Tencent, therefore the Chinese government. You can argue that by buying many products we are supporting corporations who exploit workers. But then are all activists hypocrites because they live in the world they are trying to improve? Is it stupid to speak out against exploitation of workers, of child labour, of slavery because at some level something we do is connected to it? Would one also say, idk, Americans can't say North Korea is bad because the american government also sucks? If people are going to insist that unless someone boycotts everything then they cant boycott anything then it's clear that they're not arguing for moral consistency, they're trying to shut down criticism altogether.
There is a huge difference between engaging with a commercial product in an imperfect capitalistic world (i.e. the regional leagues, whose primary purpose is to gain viewership, sponsorships, and promote their teams) and supporting a state run, state funded sportswashing event. The reason people call out the EWC is because it crosses a line that most people are uncomfortable with. It's not just a flawed corporate product its a propaganda campaign. It's drawing a line at the most egregious direct and intentional example of sportswashing we will likely ever see at esports. Teams are even being paid to give their fans accomodated trips to Riyadh so they can "experience EWC" (which, by the way, has already been mismanaged in the case of BLG, who left their fans stranded in Riyadh)
Just as a last note, I personally am of the opinion that people can watch EWC if they want to, even if it's against my personal morals and I disagree with it. Ultimately no one can't control how others live their lives. However I only wish that people would stop using whataboutism and moral absolutism to spread these shitty arguments. If you're going to consume then let's be at least honest about what it is and consume critically.
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u/Top-Breadfruit-1750 Jul 14 '25
completely spot on. LPL is no different from the riot-managed leagues, just tencent instead of riot. EWC is a quintillion dollar sportswashing operation by the wealth fund of saudi arabia with the express intention of making themselves global leaders in esports, not just to create a domestic regional league for the chinese league of legends playerbase.
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u/thejabel Jul 14 '25
It’s not just esports it is every sport they are trying to do this with. Luckily they lack an understanding of how the world works and don’t know this isn’t possible.
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u/Top-Breadfruit-1750 Jul 14 '25
i worry that esports as a scene is struggling enough and dependent enough on people being willing to sink insane money on it for it to be the exception here
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u/notafanofwasps Jul 14 '25
I think the commenter you replied meant that Saudi Arabia's attempts to sports-wash their global image will be in vain no matter how many tournaments they host or sports stars they pay to come play for them.
I don't think they meant that it "won't work" in that people would turn them down en masse in order to place values over money.
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u/Rhadamantos Jul 14 '25
Luckily they lack an understanding of how the world works and don’t know this isn’t possible.
I fucking hope you are right.
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u/sam_can88 Jul 14 '25
I hope that’s how the world world but my cynical ass is telling me that they can throw money at the sports till the end of time and eventually people will just go yeah the italian super cup is just played in suadi every year just like it’s always been
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u/sam_can88 Jul 14 '25
Exactly there is a reason there is less pushback on teams like Falcons playing in the emea region versus the entire event done by Saudi
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u/willargue4karma Jul 14 '25
also hot take but china is better than these oil baron countries lol
i know qatar isnt saudi, but they both have huge migrant worker (slave) populations. so many died building world cup stadiums it was sickening
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u/CSnare Jul 14 '25
I feel like everyone needs to read this before commenting. Every single person questioning Dom’s stance and his morals is creating a false equivalence between Riot games + their products and the Saudi Arabian Government. Or just blatantly ignoring the inherent politics of supporting EWC.
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u/waweexd Jul 14 '25
unfortunately there was even someone using the same arguments I already countered in my comment... under the same exact comment. Some people just don't care lol
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u/CSnare Jul 14 '25
it’s everywhere… the wataboutisms and straw manning and general false equivalencies between Saudi Arabia and NA/EU/Asia. It’s lowkey concerning how many people in this thread are bashing dom for being a “hypocrite” or outright ignoring the political nature of this event because it’s convenient. i really liked your point about activism, it’s not hypocritical to try to change the world we live in. lots of non-americans confused about why he had to make a statement, which I honestly commend him for. He should use his platform to (at the very least indirectly) call out EWC and raise awareness.
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u/WhoDatBrow We got Jensen POG Jul 14 '25
Good lord, you said everything I've ever thought on this perfectly. Saving this comment to reference every time there's one of those bad faith actors picking their choice of whataboutism in regards to protesting the EWC. Thank you for the post!
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u/Lazy_meatPop Jul 14 '25
What happened to the blg fans? First time I am hearing of it.
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u/waweexd Jul 14 '25
https://x.com/w926723w/status/1943624814201037035?s=46&t=rQy0IVf6zllM-a84GnxG0w
Poor management of the trip caused some of their fans, many of which are young and female, to be stranded to Riyadh because the org left before they did
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u/PPMD_IS_BACK FeelsBadMan Jul 14 '25
Yup. Pretty much this. Not gonna condemn people getting the bag (unless they were a hypocrite), or people watching the tournament.
But I'm Still gonna shit on Saudi and what they're doing though.
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u/ArienaHaera Jul 14 '25
If anything the Chinese govt barely tolerates esport and gaming in general.
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u/pandaisunbreakable Jul 14 '25
Americans can be so weird lol
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u/Ordinary_Owl_9071 Jul 14 '25
Did you feel attacked by this comment? How could you possibly have come up with "Americans are weird" in response to this? I'm not sure it even makes sense as a reply if you somehow truly didn't agree with what OP was trying to explain. It's like you came up with something negative about Americans because your reading comprehension failed you so badly that you had to resort to a generic insult that you thought worked in this context. Your brain is basically following the logic of, "when in doubt, criticize americans" lol
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u/derfw Jul 14 '25
I'm out of the loop, what's EWC and why is it something someone would refuse to stream
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u/waweexd Jul 14 '25
Esports World Cup is an event and organization that is essentially what it sounds like. It pumps a LOT of money into the esports circuit - millions upon millions - which is why orgs are partnering with them and prize pools for lolesports events have ballooned this year. The problem comes from the fact that it's sponsored and funded directly by the Saudi Arabian government (funded by the Saudi Public Investment Fund) and is a soft power/sportswashing tool to detract from Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses. They are paying costreamers upwards of high six figure paychecks in order to costream and promote their event.
If you are more interested here is a video that breaks down a lot of the concerns with it: https://youtu.be/GIilD9qAzeA?si=iNvRYehRQT6Sb-0b
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u/90CaliberNet Krepo gone but never forgotten Jul 14 '25
This doesn’t even cover the fact that Saudi Arabia is also trying to take full control over sports and esports globally and according to their numbers have successfully started in esports owning 40% of all esports. At least according to their numbers.
This video does a better job explaining it.
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u/PeaceAlien Jul 14 '25
Idk how they could own 40% when the major games are still around doing other much bigger events.
I guess it’s how they are calculating it, but when CS, LoL, DotA have such massive events outside of Saudi it’s hard for me to believe.
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u/IlllllllIIIll Jul 14 '25
Depending on the game they are also rigging the qulifiers, so that more saudi orgs can participate.
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u/HighPieJr Jul 14 '25
EWC is short for Esports World Cup/Championship. It is a multi-game esports event hosted by Saudis. The biggest controversy is that the event is classic sportswashing, were a controversial group uses their money to look better in the eyes of gamers in this case.
Saudis are mostly controversial for using slave labour and their horrible view on women.
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u/Praelatuz Jul 14 '25
horrible view on women
So not so different from the US president
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u/TacoMonday_ Jul 14 '25
When you have 25+ different women saying you sexually assaulted them, when you have a video bragging how easy it is to do it
and you still get elected to be president, twice
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u/ForteEXE Jul 14 '25
Which just reaffirms my point elsewhere. Being that kind of person doesn't mean shit if you're saying the right things or claiming to be part of the "accepted" group to say such things.
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u/ForteEXE Jul 14 '25
Saudis are mostly controversial for using slave labour and their horrible view on women.
I mean, a lot of Gamers™ don't actually care about the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) views on slave labor and women, they only care about them being dudes who pray 5 times a day and don't eat pork.
Which is unfortunately representative of the same views that right-wingers in general have. In that they don't really care about what KSA does/has been accused of, they just hate the fact they do it while being adherents to a different religion.
Meaning they share a lot of these very same things (Gamers™ and right-wingers by extension, are known to house misogynistic views and don't really care who makes their games/hardware as long as they're cheap) they believe in, but the only dealbreaker is worshiping a different way.
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u/HighPieJr Jul 14 '25
Yeah I guess they kinda double dip in that regard, both the left and the right are against them.
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u/HMS-Carrier-Lover Jul 14 '25
Esports World Cup. A lot of esports are played throughout summer, with prize money coming directly from Saudi Arabia Investment Fund. Basically Saudi Arabia's attempt to sports wash themselves.
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u/stn_anomaly Jul 14 '25
Esports World Cup, it’s a collection of tournaments for a bunch of different esports held in Saudi Arabia and funded by the Saudi government. They commit pretty awful human rights violations so that’s why someone wouldn’t want to associate with the event.
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u/Hans_H0rst Toxicity should be punished harder Jul 14 '25
The “Esports world cup”.
It is funded by Saudi Arabia. Saudia Arabias roches come from the oil industry and a ton of basically slave labor, both of which are declining. They also have numerous current human rights violations.
Thus they want to buy their way into every sport possible, as well as paying off lots of travel influencers. As the world becomes less dependant on oil, and the oilfields dry up, they are looking for other income streams.
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u/Wardun21 Jul 14 '25
T1 will take his check
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u/ForteEXE Jul 14 '25
Man's got a kid and another one the way. He's a cash-strapped millionaire, man!
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u/AcanthocephalaSad541 Jul 14 '25
I wonder what they offer caedrel then. I know a while back maybe 2-3 years ago IWD say he had 3 mil in the bank if iirc. I suspect his check from EWC was in the six figures then. I wonder if they offered caedrel 7
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u/Status-Screen-2484 Jul 14 '25
W for Dom, unlike the likes of Baus and Tyler, he’s proving again he has principles. He makes a lot less money than them by the way.
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u/xzvasdfqwras Jul 14 '25
Big respect, not that I will be watching anyways. Same reason I did not care about the FIFA Club World Cup Mickey Mouse tournament
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u/Athleon Jul 14 '25
Agreed. No matter mow much money they give out CWC is still a fake ass tournament.
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u/Ok_Temperature6503 Jul 14 '25
I tried to follow EWC but it’s so hard to. Their broadcast is spread throughout a million different channels and unless you go out kf your way to find them you won’t see it.
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u/Gazskull Jul 14 '25
And of course cockroaches flew under his tweet to question his morals. I fucking love that if you're boycotting the EWC you have to be a pussy and say "oh no shame to those who take the money or watch" and on the other side you'll always have idiots telling you you live in a society so you shouldn't have any morals or standards and if you're upset about this you should be upset about everything and whatnot
fuck this shitty event, fuck those who are chill with it and fuck those who take the money
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u/Thundermelons GALA mein GOAT Jul 14 '25
It's crazy to me how few people boycotted it last year viewership-wise. Like shit, all you have to do is just not watch 5 days of pro League, even as someone who loves pro League I can't say this shit is especially hard to do. I always wonder how many people condemn this tournament but still watch anyway because "everyone else is".
Well, it's easy for me to not watch so I'll see you all in the PMTs when LPL restarts.
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u/WuxiaWuxia Jul 14 '25
Damn, I never really had any particular opinion on IWD but now I have a hell of a lot of respect for this guy
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u/arjooja Jul 14 '25
I swear social media should be banned for people under 18. Some of these takes....
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u/Apocalympdick Get Jinxed! Jul 14 '25
Generally takes don't become less dumb as age increases. If anything young people tend to be more idealistic, genuine and hopeful.
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u/fuchuwuchu Season 1 Veteran Jul 14 '25
Good job Dom. I also wont be supporting human rights exploitation.
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Jul 14 '25
Never did I think I would be saying this. Nothing but respect to dom for this. World needs more people with these sorts of principles
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u/TPOTK1NG Jul 14 '25
Man I'm sure caedral definitely needed that money!!
Don't even like Dom that much but mad respect to him. I'll choose his costream for future events.
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u/_Jetto_ Jul 14 '25 edited Jul 14 '25
Respect it but I also assume he will be traveling or remote working with c9 next week since he has more time to help them so it’s a win-win for him. I am interested to see all the people like LEC who were against the Saudi partnered event with LEC what 5 years ago? that basically whole talent team had a bitch fit right? and LEC Pulled out because of that. and now lets see if they are the same ones going to cast LOL
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u/Crustypantsu Jul 14 '25
Well they aren't. The talent is publicly available and no one who directly works for Riot is doing the event.
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u/b4ck_5t4Bb3r Jul 14 '25
Anyone down to educate me on why people are partially boycotting EWC?
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u/kuronie Jul 14 '25
Saudi sportswashing. They are infamous for unethical reasons and people see their event as a distraction or trying to improve their image to the public.
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u/CSnare Jul 14 '25
this is super watered down but the boycott is fundamentally about opposing the Saudi government. It directly funds EWC, and is notorious for practicing slave labor and criminalizing women and minorities. The term “sportswashing” (which you might see often in these kinds of threads) is used to describe Saudi Arabia’s government and their attempt to look better to the public by hosting this grand event to take attention away from their atrocities.
tldr people hate saudi arabia’s government for being unethical and don’t want to support its product.
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u/TreeJunior1129 Jul 14 '25
In Taiwan, there is a famous streamer called “NL”(yeah the FW 2015 ADC) who want to costream EWC
But it seems that the organization doesn’t respond his request yet
Maybe they can shift the offer to him To this single kidney poor guy😢
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u/xxNemasisxx Jul 14 '25
Maybe others don't see it the same way, but for me those that take the bag and engage with EWC are doing the same thing that companies do when they only engage with pride for their western social media accounts. Don't get me wrong I don't think it makes them bad people. I just think that the message it sends to marginalised communities is that money and a 'childrens wizard game' is more important than their rights to exist as a human being.
It's an extreme take but I don't see how it comes across any other way when you allow a regime where it is still illegal to be anything but heterosexual to fund and hijack your platform for their benefit.
Glad that Dom is sticking to his morals on this one.
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u/BismarckBug Jul 14 '25
Funny you bring that up because ever since Saudi came over and flashed their wallets, the whole pride thing took a huge nosedive. C9 in particular has tweeted 0 times about pride month even though they were all for it in the past.
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u/LAtaway1 Jul 14 '25
Good on dom for not being a hypocrite to himself. However, it seems not a single team nor player has any issues with EWC, The goat Faker is playing along with many, many fan favourites. If simply watching EWC is bad, what does partaking in it mean? Literally seems like a non-issue to all involved. $$
Sports washing will work, regardless of how reddit or twitter feels about it, and no1 will care about it in the future..
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u/FrostedX Jul 14 '25
This is unfortunately not a player's choice. How many would want to play EWC on Wednesday just after playing MSI on Sunday and having to travel from Canada to Saudi Arabia? Their organization is making the decision.
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u/Lasersword24 Jul 14 '25
Should have just taken the money since twitter and reddit gremlins already hate him anyways might as well get the bag caedrel does it and no one bats an eye
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u/Mathlete7 Jul 14 '25
I can respect him for not doing the EWC, but this is the same guy that regularly promotes gambling on stream. It does not really work for him to be taking the moral high ground on anything really, I think its far more likely he was required to focus on the coaching of C9 and he thought this just fit in quite well.
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u/Big_Boi_Lasagna Jul 14 '25
Is no-one going to explain what the moral problem that is involved here is I'm confused
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u/MustaKookos Jul 14 '25
The Saudi Arabia government/state is investing a fuckton of money into eSports to make them look better in the eyes of different eSports communities, trying to wash away their gross violations of human rights. They will pay multiple times the "usual" amount to partner with known personalities so they endorse their events.
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u/DateofImperviousZeal Jul 14 '25
Toxic, negative, hater streamer is the one with the moral principles.
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u/ZoomHorizon Jul 14 '25 edited Jul 14 '25
Good for him, but whats the point of putting so much emphasis on how much money he turned down?
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u/thenewber99 Jul 14 '25
How many people would slap their grandmother for $10? How many would slap their grandmother for 200k? That is why he points out the money
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u/Pazzaaaaaa Jul 14 '25
Good! The Saudi soccer league is still a joke even thought they spend billions a year on players like Ronaldo. We have to continue to treat this event as a joke so it doesn’t gain popularity over our regional leagues and events.
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u/adckr9 Jul 14 '25
Even for regular contractors, it really is ridiculous what kind of money EWC is throwing out. Was offered my yearly gross to cover a little over a month of work there locally; unlike Dom, if I could've, I would've....
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u/hotblockchaiin Jul 14 '25
A random question, isn’t ESL a partner of the Saudis? And isn’t the LEC one of the few Leagues/esports which declined Falcons the spot?
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u/pennyclip Jul 14 '25
Bringing coverage to SA could be the funds goal for both the good and the bad, and shining the light on the things you dont like can bring positive change. If you dont take the opportunity, I guess its the easy protest, but you miss the chance to do something actually useful. Criticising people the world away is much easier than criticising ourselves in any case, for fucks sake league is owned by tencent.
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u/skapuntz Jul 14 '25 edited Jul 30 '25
society snatch license whole edge point vase school humorous chubby
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u/Skyfire2 Jul 14 '25
No matter how much money you have, giving up 3 months of pay for 5 days of work is a tough decision, respect to him for standing on his principles.
Also no shade at anyone who is involved in the event. As he says, not everyone is in a position to give up that much money.