From Oil To EA Sports FC: Why Saudi Arabia Is Spending Billions To Own The Future Of Entertainment

EA originally announced the transaction on September 29, 2025, valuing the company at approximately $55 billion and offering shareholders $210 per share in cash. The consortium included Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, commonly known as PIF, alongside technology investment firm Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. According to EA's official acquisition announcement, PIF already owned approximately 9.9% of the publisher before agreeing to roll that position into the new private company. The transaction also came with an unusually important financial detail: around $20 billion in debt financing, according to EA's regulatory filings. That means this is not simply Saudi Arabia writing a giant check and leaving EA untouched forever. The new ownership structure creates financial incentives of its own, particularly around generating reliable cash flow from franchises capable of supporting an enormous private investment. For players, that makes properties like EA Sports FC, Madden, Battlefield and The Sims even more important. For Saudi Arabia, EA delivers something else: global cultural reach.

The EA acquisition looks enormous because it is enormous. But it is not the beginning of Saudi Arabia's gaming push. PIF launched Savvy Games Group in 2022 with the explicit goal of building a major national and international gaming and esports business. Savvy subsequently combined esports organizer ESL and competitive platform FACEIT into ESL FACEIT Group. Then came another massive deal. In 2023, Savvy completed its $4.9 billion acquisition of Scopely, the mobile publisher behind games including MONOPOLY GO!. PIF now describes Savvy as Saudi Arabia's national champion for games and esports, with the ambition of helping transform the Kingdom into a global gaming hub by 2030. The numbers attached to that ambition are not small. Saudi Arabia's National Gaming and Esports Strategy targets approximately 250 gaming companies, 39,000 jobs and a SAR 50 billion contribution to GDP by 2030. Gaming, in other words, is not being treated simply as entertainment. It is being treated as economic infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia remains one of the world's most important oil producers, and oil revenues helped create the enormous pool of capital now managed by PIF. Vision 2030 is partly about using that wealth while it remains available to build something more diversified. Gaming fits that strategy unusually well. It is global. It is digital. It reaches young consumers. It overlaps with technology, media, artificial intelligence, advertising, tourism and competitive sport. And unlike oil, a successful entertainment franchise can theoretically keep creating value through sequels, licensing, subscriptions, merchandise, competitions and digital communities. PIF's own investment strategy increasingly connects these sectors instead of treating them as separate industries. Saudi Arabia is investing in games. It is investing in esports. It is investing in football. It is building entertainment destinations. And it is trying to attract technology companies, developers, tourists and major global events into the same ecosystem. That is why reducing the EA deal to "Saudi oil money buying a videogame company" misses the more interesting story. Saudi Arabia is trying to turn financial capital into cultural and technological influence.

EA becomes especially interesting when the strategy moves from gaming into football. EA Sports FC is one of the world's most recognizable football videogame franchises. Millions of players interact with clubs, leagues, footballers and competitions through EA's digital ecosystem every year. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has dramatically expanded its position inside global football. The country will host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, while PIF became an Official Tournament Supporter of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America and Asia. That 2026 partnership is particularly notable because FIFA explicitly said it incorporates Savvy Games Group and Qiddiya City alongside PIF. That does not mean Saudi Arabia suddenly controls FIFA because it owns most of EA, nor does it mean EA Sports FC becomes a government promotional product. There is no evidence supporting either claim. But the strategic overlap is undeniable. Saudi capital is now connected to one of football's biggest videogame franchises, one of the world's biggest esports portfolios, major physical entertainment developments and the biggest tournament in international football. For readers following the changing business behind videogames, our gaming features track how ownership decisions increasingly influence the industry's biggest franchises.

Saudi Arabia is also trying to make gaming something people physically travel to experience. PIF has promoted the planned Qiddiya Gaming and Esports District as part of a much larger entertainment destination near Riyadh. The stated ambition includes attracting major gaming companies, hosting competitions and creating a physical hub where development, esports, entertainment and tourism overlap. PIF has said the district aims to attract 10 million visitors annually by 2030 and host dozens of gaming companies. Saudi Arabia has already made Riyadh a major destination on the esports calendar through the Esports World Cup. Viewed individually, each investment can look unrelated. Viewed together, the model becomes much clearer: Acquire international gaming companies. Own esports infrastructure. Host major competitions. Build physical entertainment districts. Attract foreign companies and workers. Increase tourism. Create domestic jobs. And gradually reduce the economy's dependence on petroleum. That is Vision 2030 translated into gaming.

There is another interpretation of these investments, and ignoring it would leave out a major part of the international debate. Human-rights organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly accused Saudi Arabia of using high-profile sports and entertainment investments to improve its international reputation while serious human-rights concerns remain. Human Rights Watch has specifically connected criticism of "sportswashing" with Saudi Arabia's hosting of the 2034 World Cup and broader Vision 2030 strategy. Its reporting on Saudi Arabia, the World Cup and sportswashing remains central to that criticism. Critics therefore look at investments in football clubs, esports competitions, global tournaments and entertainment companies and see more than economic diversification. Saudi officials and PIF present a different argument: that these investments are intended to build industries, attract tourism, create employment and transform Saudi Arabia's economy. Both dimensions matter. A country can pursue genuine economic diversification while also benefiting from the international image created by high-profile cultural and sporting investments. The two explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

The biggest question for gamers is much simpler. Will any of this make EA's games better? The answer is currently impossible to know. Going private removes some of the quarterly pressures associated with being publicly traded, potentially allowing EA to pursue longer-term investments. But the company's new ownership structure also carries billions in acquisition debt. That creates an obvious tension. EA could receive the capital and patience to expand its biggest franchises. Or financial pressure could encourage even greater concentration on established brands, recurring spending and predictable revenue. No ownership announcement can tell us which outcome players will actually get. That will be decided through future games, studio investment, monetization decisions and whether EA continues taking creative risks outside its largest franchises. Follow our latest gaming news as the publisher enters its new era under private ownership.

Saudi Arabia is not trying to replace oil with videogames. That would dramatically oversimplify an economy and investment strategy worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The goal is diversification. Gaming is attractive because it sits at the intersection of several things Saudi Arabia wants more of: technology, entertainment, tourism, youth employment, global events and international cultural relevance. Buying into EA therefore makes sense as part of a much broader portfolio. Saudi Arabia already has Scopely. It already has ESL FACEIT Group. It already hosts major esports competitions. It is building Qiddiya. It will host the World Cup in 2034. Now its sovereign wealth fund sits at the center of the ownership structure behind EA Sports FC, Battlefield, The Sims and one of the most recognizable publishers in gaming. The real story is not that oil money has entered videogames. It is that Saudi Arabia is using the wealth created by oil to make sure its economic and cultural influence does not depend on oil forever.