Esports World Cup (EWC) 2026 Club Championship explained: Format, points, prize pool, & more

Wasif Ahmed Published 12/07/2026

The Esports World Cup (EWC) 2026 prize pool stands at an astounding $75 million, cementing it as the biggest esports event on the planet. However, the most substantial part of the prize pool, a whole $30 million, is reserved for the Esports World Cup (EWC) Club Championship.

If you are looking for all the information regarding what the EWC Club Championship is, how it works, and the prize pool split, we have got you covered.

EWC Club Championship 2026 explained

The EWC Club Championship is the title that all esports orgs in Paris are currently fighting for.

Basically, the EWC has 25 tournaments across 24 game titles. Esports audiences, however, are fragmented in that they watch only the titles they actively follow.

The EWC Club Championship, therefore, leverages esports organizations’ own fandoms to fight for a title that combines all 25 tournaments.

This means that esports orgs gain points by competing in the different games at the EWC. At the end of the whole event, the esports organization with the most points is crowned the EWC Club Champion and pockets a whopping $7 million.

If you are confused about what club means, the Esports Foundation, the non-profit organizing body of the EWC, calls individual esports organizations clubs.

The EWC Club Championship is not to be confused with the Club Partner Program. The latter is a partnership program where the Esports Foundation offers financial support to different esports organizations to enter new titles for the EWC. In exchange, these esports orgs offer marketing support.

All esports organizations, whether they are part of the Club Partner Program or not, are eligible to fight for the Club Championship title.

Important rules

There are several important rules to keep in mind regarding the EWC Club Championship:

Esports organizations need to place in the top eight in at least two competitions to be eligible for the Club Championship.
To be eligible to win the Club Championship, an esports organization should also place first in one tournament, irrespective of the number of points it secures.
Only the teams that were locked, announced, and submitted to the Esports Foundation by April 30, 2026, are eligible for Club Championship points.

A still from the opening ceremony of the EWC 2026 in Paris. Image credit: Esports Foundation

EWC Club Championship points distribution

In each of the 25 tournaments, the top eight organizations receive points. These are as follows:

First place: 1,000 points
Second place: 750 points
Third place: 500 points
Third and fourth place: 500 points (where applicable)
Fourth place: 300 points
Fifth place: 200 points
Fifth to eighth place: 200 points (where applicable)
Sixth place: 150 points
Seventh place: 100 points
Eighth place: 50 points

Depending on the format, certain tournaments have a combined third and fourth place or fifth to eighth places; therefore, the points for those are separate.

Image Credit: Esports Foundation

Esports World Cup Club Championship prize money split

The $30 million will be split among the top 24 teams as follows:

$7 million
$5 million
$4 million
$3 million
$2 million
$1.4 million
$1.15 million
$950,000
$800,000
$650,000
$550,000
$500,000
$450,000
$400,000
$350,000
$300,000
$275,000
$250,000
$225,000
$200,000
$175,000
$150,000
$125,000
$100,000

Ties will only be broken for first place in the Club Championship. In case of a tie, the team with the higher number of better individual results will be crowned the champion.

If the tie is not broken, the head-to-head points from games where both clubs competed will be considered. In case it is still not resolved, the Esports Foundation has said that it will “introduce other feasible methods to resolve it.”

For ties in the other rankings, the combined prize pool of all the tied teams will be split equally.

Past winners

Since the first EWC was held two years ago, Team Falcons has managed to win both editions of the Club Championship in 2024 and 2025.

Wasif Ahmed

About Wasif Ahmed

Wasif Ahmed is the Lead Esports Editor for WIN.gg. He has been covering esports for nearly eight years, although his gaming journey started much earlier, when he was just four years old and was introduced to Road Rash on a dusty PC. Hit him up on X to talk about esports, why partnership models are the best fit for esports games, or if Halo 7 has finally been announced.

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