Hero Esports is a Chinese

esports Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...

organisation founded in 2016, led by entrepreneur Dino Ying and Danny Tang. The company specializes in tournament organisation, esports marketing solutions, and esports community development. Hero Esports was originally known as VSPN (Versus Programming Network), then VSPO; and rebranded alongside a corporate restructure in November 2024. Co-founder and original CEO Dino Ying moved to the role of Executive Chairman; co-founder and former CFO Danny Tang is now CEO. Ying's move enabled further focus on the next generation of esports - such as the Hero Esports Asian Champions League, and supporting the development of the Olympic Esports Games and

Esports World Cup The Esports World Cup (EWC) is an annual international esports tournament series run by the Esports World Cup Foundation, a nonprofit organization. It is considered the largest professional esports event in the world both financially and in terms ...

. He was named a member of the Asian Games Esports taskforce in July 2024; and was already elected as a member of the OCA’s first Esports and E Martial Art Committee. The company has 12 office locations, in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

, Chengdu, Xi'an, Shenzen,

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

(China);

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

(South Korea);

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

(Malaysia); and

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

(UAE). It operates three esports venues and arenas - two in Shanghai (the Hero Esports Shanghai Esports Arena and INS Renaissance) and one in

Chengdu Chengdu; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, previously Romanization of Chinese, romanized as Chengtu. is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a ...

(the Hero Esports Chengdu Esports Arena). Investors in Hero Esports include Savvy Games Group and

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

; and strategic partners such as

Kuaishou Kuaishou Technology ( zh, c=快手, l=quick hand) is a Chinese publicly traded partly state-owned holding company based in Haidian District, Beijing, that was founded in 2011 by Hua Su (宿华) and Cheng Yixiao (程一笑). The company, liste ...

and streaming service

Huya Live Huya Live ( zh, s=虎牙直播) is a Chinese video live streaming platform under HUYA Inc. (NYSE: HUYA), one of the largest of its kind in China. HUYA Inc. is headquartered in Guangzhou and is a subsidiary of Tencent Holdings Limited. HUYA Inc. ...

. Hero Esports is a member of the

Esports Integrity Commission The Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC), formerly the Esports Integrity Coalition, is a non-profit members' association established in 2016 to promote and facilitate competitive integrity in esports. Notable for investigating the coaching bug sc ...

(ESIC).

Events

Since its inception, Hero Esports has grown to produce over 7000 matches every year and has reached an online fanbase of over 800 million, and by 2025 stood as the largest esports company in Asia, realising the Chinese state's ambition to lead in the $2billion industry. Hero Esports first managed and produced an esports event in September 2016, with the King Pro League Fall 2016; followed by the PUBG China Pro Invitational 2018 (May 2018); and PUBG Mobile Star Challenge 2018 (November 2018). Hero Esports's portfolio of leagues and tournaments include titles such as ''

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL'', commonly referred to as ''League'', is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for ''Warcraf ...

'' and ''

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds ''PUBG: Battlegrounds'' (previously known as ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'') is a 2017 battle royale video game published by Krafton, and developed by Krafton's PUBG Studios. The game, which was inspired by the Japanese film '' Battle Ro ...

'', and cover over 80% of the esports titles on the market. Additionally, Hero Esports has collaborated with major game publishers like Tencent and

Krafton Krafton Inc. () is a South Korean video game publisher and holding company based in Bundang District, Seongnam. It was created in November 2018 to serve as the parent company for Bluehole, founded by Chang Byung-gyu in Seoul in March 2007, and ...

to organise esports leagues, including ''

Honor of Kings ''Honor of Kings'' (, unofficially translated as "King's Glory", or alternatively transliterated as Wangzhe Rongyao) is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed by TiMi Studio Group and published by Tencent Games for iOS, ...

'' KPL series and ''PUBG'' PGC series.

Olympic and Asian Games

Hero Esports has been involved in producing esports events for international competitions, including the

Olympic Esports Week The Olympic Esports Series was an Olympic Games-style esports event featuring multiple different virtual sports and video games coming together in a single location similar to a multi-sport event, run by the International Olympic Committee. ...

and esports series at the Jakarta Asian Games (2018) and the Hangzhou Asian Games (2022). The Hero Esports Asian Champions League (ACL) tournament series was launched in 2025, organised by Hero Esports as one of Asia's largest multi-genre mobile esports competition. Initial estimates of the live audience for the tournament finale exceeded 16,000,000 globally.

References

{{Reflist Esports organizations Esports in China Organizations established in 2016