PGL to host XMark Media Cup for GeoGuessr

Esports tournament organiser PGL has announced that it will be entering into a new discipline, GeoGuessr, by hosting the XMARK Media Cup.

The event will serve as the first tournament held by PGL for the geography browser game, which is scheduled to take place from December 20th to 21st.

According to the announcement by PGL, the XMark Media Cup will feature a double-elimination format. All matches within the GeoGuessr tournament will be best-of-three, and will conclude with a best-of-five Grand Final.

Each match within the tournament will also have some ground rules. Game settings will be set to standard, which includes 10 rounds, with damage increased after the fourth round, and will include Move, No Move, and NMPZ modes.

Fans can watch the action through the main broadcasts on PGL’s YouTube and Twitch channels, alongside the players streaming from their own POVs.

PGL also announced that the online gambling company 1xBet will be the tournament’s title partner, sharing that the betting platform will ‘support new competitive formats’ and ‘expand the boundaries’ of esports. 1xBet is a common brand in the esports scene, partnering with various teams and tournaments this year.

Despite not typically being perceived as a competitive title like Counter-Strike 2 or League of Legends, the online guessing game has continued to expand its esports scene since it was first launched back in 2023.

Various tournaments across multiple countries were held throughout 2025. Geoguessr has run a number of regional majors in Japan, United States, and Sweden as players competed for a place in the World Cup Finals.

The crowning event featured a prize pool of $108,480 (~£80,953), and reached a peak viewership of over 360,000, smashing the previous year’s viewership. In the end, the Grand Final was won by Radu ‘Radu C‘ Casapu.

Geoguessr has also been involved in several partnerships in 2025, joining forces with data platforms such as Esports Charts to provide insights on its tournaments. It has also secured a partnership with Opera GX, which became the official browser partner of the World Cup Finals.