French agency Havas Play has been appointed to support partnership and sponsorship sales for the upcoming Esports World Cup (EWC) 2026 in Paris.
The agency will oversee regional sponsorship strategies and brand integrations for the tournament, which is scheduled to run from 6 July to 23 August 2026. The EWC 2026 marks the first time the massive multi-title esports event will be held out of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, leveraging France’s highly engaged gaming community and structural support.
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According to a post by the agency on LinkedIn, “many partnership opportunities are still open”. The post, in French, highlights the EWC as a commercial opportunity after the Olympic Games 2024 held in the city, which becomes “a place where gaming, sport, culture, and creators converge on a large scale.”
The agency also promotes the tournament as “one of the few events capable of connecting performance, an engaged audience, and cultural desirability”. Commercial operation will be led by Havas Play’s Sponsorship Development Director Maxime Derenne and Head of Gaming and Esport Pierre Acuña, who are actively opening partnership opportunities for brands looking to enter the ecosystem.
Havas Play also shared numbers from the EWC, highlighting that the seven-week international tournament is projected to bring over 2,000 players representing more than 100 countries, competing across 24 distinct competitive gaming disciplines. Organisers expect the event to command a cumulative global audience of approximately 750 million viewers spanning 140 countries.
For Havas Play, the initiative capitalises on a robust domestic esports market in France, which was even highlighted by the President Emmanuel Macron. aligning the commercial push with a unique post-Olympics 2024 momentum designed to connect corporate brands with high-performance digital entertainment properties.
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