High Roller

Australia came up short in their bid to win the 2023 Overwatch World Cup despite making an excellent start at the tournament in California. After easily progressing through the regional qualifying stage, the Australian team were drawn in Group B alongside Great Britain, Canada and Brazil. Australia defeated Brazil 2-0 in their opening game, but they were unable to follow up against Britain and Canada who progressed to the quarter-finals. Both those teams came up short in the last eight, with Britain demolished 3-0 by Finland and Canada bowing out 3-1 against South Korea. Saudi Arabia and China also made it though to the semi-finals after their respective victories over Spain and United States. China were rated as the favourites by online bookmakers to defeat South Korea and got the job done with a 3-2 win. Saudi Arabia also progressed by the same scoreline against Finland. The top betting apps in Australia had fielded a ton of bets on China before the tournament started, and they were fully expected to complete the job against the Saudi team. However, the Saudis had other ideas, securing a memorable 3-2 victory to claim their country’s first-ever major title in Overwatch. They upset the odds by recovering from 2-0 down to seal the win. The Saudi players were spurred on during the tournament by support from Prince Faisal Bin Bandar, the president of the Saudi Arabian eSports Federation. The Middle East nation is on a mission to become a global powerhouse in eSports and the victory was a notable landmark on their way to that target. Prince Faisal was understandably delighted with the team’s success. "Saudi Arabia's win of the Overwatch 2 World Cup and the acquisition of our first gold medal in the history of Saudi eSports is evidence that we are on the right path towards achieving our goals of being at the forefront of eSports globally and a source of champions representing the kingdom on various international stages,” he said. "The passion and collaboration among the players highlight the significant growth witnessed in the Saudi eSports community." The 2023 tournament was the fifth edition of the Overwatch World Cup and had a whopping $125,000 first prize up for grabs. China took home $50,000, while Finland pocketed $40,000. Each of the losing quarter-finalists collected $15,000, while Australia were among the eight losing teams from the group stage who were awarded $7,500. Australia’s involvement in the tournament followed hot on the heels of what has been an important period for the eSports sector in the country. The recent Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) event in Sydney was an opportunity for Australia to demonstrate its passion for gaming, and it did not disappoint. The event included the first-ever Counter-Strike (CS2) tournament, which attracted a massive in-person audience to the Aware Super Theatre. FaZe Clan were the eventual winners, defeating Complexity Gaming 2-1 in the final. They pocketed $100,000, while the runners-up claimed $42,000. Attendees also had the opportunity to see Intel’s 14th-Gen processor in action for the first time as eSports teams from Australia and the United Kingdom went head-to-head in a ‘Showmatch’. Chad ‘SPUNJ’ Burchill, Joshua ‘INS’ Potter, Christopher ‘dexter’ Nong, Justin ‘jks’ Savage, Declan ‘Vexite’ Portelli and Chris ‘GoMeZ Orfanellis (coach) represented Australia. The match started closely, with both teams putting points on the board, but Australia eventually found their rhythm to triumph 13-7 and claim their fourth consecutive win over the UK. In addition to being roared on by a partisan home crowd, Australia’s victory in the ‘Showmatch’ was also witnessed by a massive online audience. Gravity Media played a key role in broadcasting the event globally, with staff from Australia and France collaborating to deliver seamless coverage throughout the week. IEM 2023 was Oceania’s most popular eSports event ever staged, securing a peak audience of more than 460,000 viewers. That figure was a significant increase on the peak viewership of just over 271,000 when EIM was last staged in Sydney four years ago.