LEVEL UP
THE OPPORTUNITY: In the summer of 2024, Saudi Arabia hosted the first-ever Esports World Cup. Commonly referred to as the Olympics of video games, the debut of the EWC was more than just a competition. It was a gathering of the gaming tribes. For 8 weeks, one global event captured the attention of ALL the fanbases of ALL the world’s most popular games.
THE CHALLENGE: Before the success of Drive To Survive or Full Swing, sports like F1 and golf were seen as inaccessible – and the cultures surrounding them as monied and elitist. But with Esports, there is a bias that is more challenging. It’s a bias that says none of this even matters because this isn’t a real sport and these aren’t real athletes. Hell, they’re not even real people. They’re just nerds. So when pro gamers came to Riyadh in the summer of 2024, they weren’t just fighting for the Esports World Cup, they were fighting skepticism that any of this was really a thing. There’s a reason Esports had found no takers in the traditional sports media landscape. And in the case of this series, overcoming skepticism would be compounded by the burden of understanding what the hell is going on in so many different games. How can an outsider be expected to know what winning looks like in two dozen games when – at best – they may have only played one or two?
In addition, there was one final complication.
Although the project was greenlit and fully funded, there was zero creative development prior to the start of prep. With just weeks to go before the event, the job was not just to run a show, but to invent a show. At $10M, the scale of the 5 ep series was huge, as was the pressure to deliver a product compelling enough to overcome skeptics and secure top shelf distribution. Even though we had to build the plane while flying it, we were able to land the project at Amazon. Season 2 is set to premiere on June 25, 2026.
THE SOLUTION: For two seasons now, Level Up hasn’t been just a window into a world – but a doorway for outsiders to enter this once-insular culture and discover a rooting interest without having to learn the rules of even one game. That’s because the unique format of the EWC is something even outsiders can understand – an Olympic “medal count” style competition where teams race to win as many titles as possible in pursuit of gaming’s ultimate prize, The Esports World Cup itself. And so, getting people to care about Esports players isn’t that complicated after all- even if the games themselves may seem so. That’s because this series isn’t about the x’s and o’s of one unknowable game. It’s about the race for the Cup, where character is revealed under pressure and the high stakes push for the $70M in prize money. But just as important as who is standing atop the podium are the forces that pushed them to get there. And it’s here where we transform the non-gamers bias against esports into moments of unexpected recognition. We are all either running from something or to something in life. And so in the end, we aren’t really even rooting for them to win. We’re rooting for them to be happy. You don’t have to be a gamer to understand that.
THE SOKA SAGA
Hailing from the rough streets of Oakland, “Soka” is the smack-talking extrovert who flips the script on the gamer-as-loner stereotype. Soka is the “Alpha” player common at elite levels of traditional sports – taunting his rivals, rallying his team, and calling his shot. But his bravado masks a troubled upbringing marked by his father’s time in prison. Soka’s dad once was a promising football prospect, but those dreams were cut short by jail time. Once out of prison, his dad was thrilled when Soka took up football himself but furious when he told him he was quitting to be a pro gamer. Soka now makes more money in a single night than his dad makes in a whole year. Soka fronts like he’s the Alpha – and in game, he is – but he emotions are raw when it comes to his family. He credits his mom with winning his father over, saying he wants to “prove her right.” And with an unprecedented $1,000,000 prize within his reach at EWC, Soka’s got more to prove than ever before.
Soka is the first of many characters in our series with real-life stakes that are much more compelling than getting high score in some video game. In the episodes that follow, we traveled to the four corners of the globe to capture the backstories and motivations that our characters bring with them to Riyadh.
WHEN THE STAKES OF THE GAME… ARE REAL
Steven Arhancet is one of Esports most recognized figures. As Co-CEO of Team Liquid Enterprises, Steve oversees a team of over 300 employees from his HQ in Santa Monica. Arhancet counts Peter Guber, NBA legend Magic Johnson, and life coach Tony Robbins as partners. Steve is the gold standard in Esports and the man all challengers are gunning for. And yet with an empire to protect, EWC presented Steve with a unique and personal challenge. Steve is openly gay and grapples with competing at an event in a country that is officially hostile to people who share his orientation. As a statement of his values, Steve changed the logo on the team jersey for EWC to include the pride colors. This decision would not be without consequences, but as he enters EWC he must keep his eyes on the prize and fight off his biggest rival, Saudi Arabia’s Team Falcons.
With a deep and talented portfolio of teams, Steve Arhancet, should take solace in the fact that a multi-disciplinary tournament like EWC should be his for the taking. But the shockingly aggressive poaching of talent (like Soka) by his rival, Team Falcons, has caught them on the back foot. Liquid now knows they can’t afford to concede points in the race for the cup by failing to compete in a particular game. The arms race for talent is on. If Liquid don’t have a presence in a game at EWC, they’ll go get one. And when it comes to Mobile Legends Bang Bang, the best talent in the world hails from one place: The Philippines. There, in a remote village, we meet Sanford, A 19-year-old prodigy signed by Liquid months before EWC. Just weeks before the tournament, the unthinkable happens, and he now finds himself not only the primary breadwinner for his extended family but also the caregiver for his ailing father. Not to be outdone, the Falcons acquire their own team from the Philippines, and a clash of the titans looms. With his family watching from home and $1Million on the line, Sanford carries more than the weight of a tournament—he carries their hopes for a better life.
REVIEWS
“I’m an old-school gamer who doesn’t play anymore, but this series is fun to watch because of the competitive nature of the subjects, and even more so from hearing about their backstories. R.J. Cutler does a fantastic job of weaving the gameplay and stories together, so that fans of games such as League of Legends and Call of Duty, as well as non-gamers such as myself, will still enjoy the universal appeal of it all the same.”
“A mixture of competitive gameplay and a range of compelling participants, each with his or her backstory, the end result after consuming the first episode of Esports World Cup: Level Up is great anticipation of the remaining four.”
