Esports Integrity Commission signs collaboration with IOC

11 June 2024

With each passing day, it feels like esports are becoming more and more mainstream. From broken viewership records to the recent creation of the International Esports Exchange; the potential and added value of esports are evolving constantly. The brand-new collaboration between the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is the latest step in that whole process. Together, they want to step up their efforts to fight corruption and other misconduct in international esports.

Sharing of information and insights

With the IOC and the ESIC, their recent agreement on the future of integrity in esports means that two major international organizations will be collaborating. To be more precise, it will be the IOC’s Olympic Movement Unit for the Prevention of the Manipulation of Competitions (OM Unit PMC) who will be working together with the ESIC. The goal is to improve and increase the sharing of information and insights in relation to integrity in the world of international esports, and to sustainably improve the standards in that regard.
“This collaboration with the IOC and the OM Unit PMC denotes a significant milestone for the global esports industry and is a testament to the IOC’s engagement with the industry in the development of its esports strategy”, says Stephen Hanna, CEO at the Esports Integrity Commission, “We are looking forward to working with the IOC to support its ambitious esports initiatives. This collaboration further validates the critical nature of ESIC’s mission and provides the industry with further assurance that ESIC’s work is meeting the evolving challenges to competitive integrity in esports.”

Olympic Committee further focusing on esports

The letter of collaboration that was recently signed by the ESIC and the IOC means that the two organizations will be working together much more intensively from now on. Apart from sharing information and insights, they will also be developing and implementing strategies and initiatives with the goal of increasing the level of overall integrity of the industry. On top of that, the Esports Integrity Committee will also providing the International Olympic Committee with advice and guidance on all matters related to international esports. The news of the agreement comes shortly after the IOC mentioned that the first full edition of the Olympic Esports Games could take place as soon as 2025.

“With numerous IFs organizing esports competitions and the IOC planning to organize relevant competitions as well, we need to ensure that we have all the information and intelligence available to make sure that these competitions are free of manipulations or related breaches.”, says Friedrich Martens, Head of the OM Unit PMC at the International Olympic Committee. “Therefore, we are very happy about this letter of collaboration formalizing the long-standing communication between ESIC and the OM Unit PMC, particularly as esports is a developing area. Thus, we count on the support of ESIC for safeguarding the integrity and credibility of the esports competitions of the Olympic Movement, specifically to also further understand relevant risks and develop all right measures to mitigate them.”