Riot signs controversial sponsorship deal with Saudi Arabia city project

The League of Legends European Championship, the professional esports league run by Riot Games, has announced a sponsorship deal with Saudi Arabian city-building project Neom - a move that has already attracted significant criticism from fans.

The deal will see Neom become the main partner for the LEC's summer season and sponsor a new "Oracle Lens" segment of the live broadcast, which along with a similar partnership with CS:GO tournament BLAST, should bring the project a fair amount of exposure. Neom is a cross-border city project planned for construction in the Tabuk province of Saudi Arabia. Backed by both the Saudi Arabian state and international investors, the megacity is supposed to represent the future of humanity, with plans made by Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman including flying cars, robot dinosaurs and a giant artificial moon (via Wall Street Journal [paywall]). Costing £400bn to complete, the city-state will cover an area the size of Belgium.

There appears to be a far darker side to this high-tech city, however, as reports allege Saudi authorities are removing and even killing Huwaiti tribe members to make way for the project (via The Guardian). Following the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an act the CIA attributed to Salman, the crown prince allegedly told colleagues that "no one will invest [in the project] for years" due to the international outcry that followed (via The Financial Times [paywall]).

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