Breaking: New TO announces plans for $1,000,000 LAN tournament in August raising heavy skepticism

Seemingly out of the blue, Ultimate Gaming Championships and Global Domination Entertainment have today announced plans to host a massive $1,300,000 tournament circuit that is set to culminate with a LAN finals in Oklahoma City. The qualifiers for the event are supposedly set to start on June 17th while the LAN itself will allegedly be played from August 29th to August 31st.

This announcement has been met by a high degree of skepticism in the Counter-Strike community as Global Domination Entertainment, an unknown and unproven tournament organizer, has allegedly secured a prizepool that rivals Valve's Majors, brought in AMD as a sponsor, and are set to host the LAN at a massive arena all in three month's time.

Dust2.us are actively attempting to contact Ultimate Gaming Championships and Global Domination Entertainment, however while we wait for a response here's what we know.

Starting with the basics, the Global Domination: Invasion tournament website claims that the main event is set to feature a $1,000,000 prizepool and will be hosted at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma from August 29th to August 31st. The Paycom Center is an 18,000 seat arena that is home to the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA franchise.

The event can be found on the Paycom Center's website, which suggests that at the very least someone from UGC or GDE has been in contact with the Paycom center enough to get the venue to list the event on their calendar.

Global Domination: Invasion also claims to be sponsored by AMD, with this fact also appearing to pass muster as the AMD Gaming X account posted about the event alongside UGC and GDE's own announcements:

As for the companies behind Global Domination: Invasion, Ultimate Gaming Championships' website states company was founded in 2004 and has hosted multiple events in titles including Halo, Fortnite, and Rocket League. However, it appears that UGC has been dormant for some time, with their last events being held in 2019, nearly six years ago.

Likewise, it appears that UGC's social media had been inactive for some time before ramping up again for the Global Domination: Invasion tournament. The tournament organizer's Twitch account has not streamed in two years, their YouTube account has been inactive for seven years, and their X/Twitter account only made a single post between November 2023 and January 2025.

The other partner in this venture, Global Domination Entertainment LLC (GDE), appears to be a new limited liability company registered with the Florida Division of Corporations on February 3rd, 2025. According to the filing, GDE appears to be based out of a residential townhouse in Florida and a PO box in Tusla, Oklahoma.

Overall these details are concerning as it points to a relatively small team lacking experience in running Counter-Strike events. This is troubling when you look at the format for the event which is a dizzying mix of global qualifiers, player tiers, and multiple different formats.

Additionally certain concepts on the event's website don't align with realities of hosting an event of this size. For example, their focus on letting amateur players compete and having players ranked "determined by Steam stats" is confusing and heterodox in a world of VRS rankings, FACEIT levels, and other, better metrics. The event also claims to match up " Single entrants" and create teams from scratch feels really "grassroots" for a $1m tournament that is also trying to attract top teams.

In the wake of the high-profile collapse of fraudulent and fugazi North American tournaments like the USEA and the Perseverance League in the last twelve months and an overall environment of cynicism, it remains to be seen whether or not Global Domination: Invasion will be the latest tournament promising too much or if UGC and GDE will put on a truly special event for the NA scene.

UGC's CEO Matt Jackson has agreed to an extended interview with Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore to discuss the event. The interview will be conducted on Friday with it expected to be published in the following days.