Marvel Rivals esports is in its infancy, and the tournament organisers are not getting ahead of themselves.
The video game is currently hosting its first-ever LAN tournament, the Marvel Rivals Ignite Mid-Season finals.
The tournament is part of the ambitious $3 million (£2.2m) Ignite series of events, which are helping legitimise Marvel Rivals as an esport.
But it has people wondering, what is next for competitive Marvel Rivals?
As a hero-based shooter, Marvel Rivals will always face comparisons to the Overwatch League.
The Overwatch League’s franchise model saw esports organisations pay around $20m (£15m) for a permanent place in the league.
It added security, which was more attractive for sponsors, but also no relegations meant things could get stale for fans.
Despite Overwatch’s popularity, the franchise ultimately failed and the Overwatch League folded in 2024.
In an interview with Jake Lucky, Marvel Rivals’ Head of Esports, Adam Huang, says Netease aren’t looking into franchising yet:
“No, I think for the beginning we will not undergo this, because they will restrict how we behave.
“We want to go independently, so in the beginning we can arrange everything ourselves.
“We won’t be restrained by anyone else. If everything goes smoothly, we’ll consider every possibility in the future.”
Marvel Rivals esports have been open to any team with online qualifiers deciding the majority of regional competitors.
Though some teams were directly invited to later stages after strong performances in prior tournaments.
However, this has still left room for upsets.
Previously undefeated Virtus.Pro were heavy favourites on esports betting sites to be EMEA champions, but were eliminated from even qualifying for the Mid-Season Finals.
Esports skins bundles could be coming to Marvel Rivals
In the same interview with Lucky, NetEase’s Huang also discussed further supporting teams outside of tournament prizes.
Huang confirmed that esports skin bundles could soon come to Marvel Rivals to further help teams:
“I can guarantee, if we want to build this ecosystem, we have to do something more than the initial prize pool.
“We have to launch something similar to the team bundles and maybe other forms of bundles.
“Maybe bundles that contribute to the players, to the teams, and to the Grand Finals prize pools.
Because you can see each bundle has its own effect. Like, the team bundle evenly contributes to every team, so everyone can survive, and the Grand Finals bundle mainly contributes to the champions and runners-ups.
They act in different ways, so we have to make mass calculations so that everyone in this ecosystem can find their way.”
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.