IEM Cologne Tops H1 2026 Esports Sponsorship Value
Esports Charts’ Media Value ranking for H1 2026 finds IEM Cologne Major led with $44.89M; top 10 events totaled more than $203M, led by League of Legends and Counter-Strike.
Esports Charts published a Media Value ranking for tournaments held in the first half of 2026. The metric estimates how much a 1% on-screen banner throughout an event would cost by combining viewership, broadcast exposure and regional advertising rates. Esports Charts describes the measure as a comparative sponsorship benchmark, not as a literal revenue figure or confirmed sponsor spending.
IEM Cologne Major 2026 ranked first with an estimated Media Value of $44.89 million. The ten events with the highest estimated on-screen sponsorship value together exceeded $203 million.
League of Legends accounted for four events with a combined estimated Media Value of about $92 million. Counter-Strike had four entries in the top ten with a combined value roughly $7 million lower than League of Legends. Valorant contributed two international Masters events that together totaled nearly $25.9 million.
The top ten events and their Media Value estimates were: IEM Cologne Major 2026 at $44.89 million; LCK 2026 Season at $35.14 million; LCK Cup 2026 at $25.79 million; LEC 2026 Versus at $17.68 million; IEM Krakow 2026 at $16.99 million; LEC 2026 Spring at $14.03 million; Valorant Masters Santiago 2026 at $13.18 million; Valorant Masters London 2026 at $12.69 million; BLAST Open Spring 2026 at $11.77 million; and ESL Pro League Season 23 at $10.86 million.
The ranking illustrates a gap between raw audience size and commercially weighted exposure. Several high-viewership mobile tournaments, including major Mobile Legends: Bang Bang events, did not appear in the Media Value top ten. Factors such as audience location, broadcast duration, local advertising rates and the format of sponsor branding affect an event’s Media Value.
Esports organizers and potential sponsors can use the Media Value estimate as a baseline to compare visible on-screen branding across games, regions and broadcast formats. Esports Charts also provides a Media Value Calculator for event-level estimates and offers additional data products for analysis across platforms and languages.
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