Smash World Tour tournament cancelled over Nintendo's notice to no longer operate
One of the biggest Smash tournaments in the world, the Smash World Tour Championships, with over 6'400 live events worldwide and more than 325'000 in-person entrants, has received a notice from Nintendo two weeks before the event to cease operations.
The Smash World Tour (SWT) was scheduled to start on December 9th up to December 11th in San Antonio, Texas, with the biggest prize pool ever in the championship's history, with over $250'000. The tournament had previously stopped due to the worldwide pandemic, and this year's tournament was going to be the return to the in-person format for participants and those involved.
Back in November, 2021, the people from SWT got contacted by Nintendo themselves, alongside a legal representative of them. Though, to their surprise, the contact was not given to shut the event down, but rather to pursue a partnership and a legal use of the license so they could continue carrying forward with SWT's projects. Afterwards, from December up to March 2022, the announcement for a 2022 project was withhold as requested by Nintendo, and continued forwards according to Nintendo's guidelines, but with some issues with Panda's team in regards to the event. SWT submitted their request in April of 2022 for the upcoming event, and there was no response up until August, where the team had no option but to come forward with the announcement due to the delays in communication with Nintendo.
Nintendo responded back, and quoting the SWT team's official statement:
The proper submission was made in April, which reconvened with Nintendo all the way up to September, with Nintendo yet again reassuring that, while nothing was decided yet, they apologized for how long the process had taken so far, while mentioning that they were also monitoring the actions of Panda and their executive team due to their behaviour throughout the year.
November quickly came by, only one month before the event, and Nintendo finally got back in contact with the team on November 23rd, and quoting SWT's team:
Without a license, the championship couldn't operate. In short words, they can't continue forward, or they might risk a legal action by Nintendo (if one reads between the lines) if they continue forward with the event.
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