Visa issues continue to be a major problem in esports, especially when tournaments are held in the United States.
Most recently, Wolves Esports was eliminated from the BLAST R6 Salt Lake City Major, but not because of their performance. The team’s visa applications were rejected.
The team stated on X: “It is very disappointing that we will be unable to take our spot on the international stage after all the hard work our team put into qualifying.”
It’s a sad (and lame) ending for the team, which qualified for the Salt Lake City Major through the Phase 1 Play-In Stage, where the team placed third. The team was set to compete against LOS in its first match in the upper bracket Quarter Final. It’s unclear if another team will take Wolves Esports’ place.
This isn’t the first time that there have been visa issues in Rainbow Six Siege, or esports in general. My colleague wrote a very insightful piece on the state of visa issues amid political unrest worldwide this year. It has become tricky to get a visa for American events (if teams even want to come to the United States right now).
Riot recently came under fire for holding the League of Legends World Championship 2026 in various U.S. cities. When Global Head of Esports Chris Greeley was asked about the visa delay issues with American events, he didn’t seem too bothered.
“We’re always looking at contingencies, regardless of where we are in the world. I can’t remember an international event in the last couple of years where there weren’t some visa or immigration concerns right up until the event.
“If one or two teams are having trouble, we’ll continue working directly with those teams, along with our agencies and any government contacts we can leverage. That’s essentially our standard operating procedure — to do everything we can to help teams gain entry. In situations where there are isolated cases — like a single player or team unable to attend — we do look for fallback options, and we’ve done that in the past.”
Is America Truly a Bad Place to Host Esports Events?
There has been a lot of discourse over the decision to continue hosting esports events in the United States, despite growing political and safety concerns and teams consistently dropping out due to visa issues.
But not everyone is convinced America is denying visas left and right.
Esports journalist Kevin Hitt recently tweeted: “Is there any real journalism in esports? I am reading these articles about visas getting denied, and they all miss the two biggest questions people want answered. When did they apply and WHY was it rejected?”
This is the same question Hitt asked Wolves Esports, but he didn’t get an explanation. Another Rainbow Six fan answered instead, saying the visa paperwork could have been screwed up or that it could be the country’s political climate. However, they pointed out other teams didn’t run into issues.
Hitt replied: “Yet, all we see is ‘our visas got denied, USA sucks!’”
Fair point. We don’t know why Wolves Esports’ visas were denied. However, being lazy about applying until the last minute seems like an odd choice when there is $600,000 on the line.
Someone else asked why teams keep applying at the last minute. However, this may not be due to laziness and sloppiness. Another fan pointed out that you can’t apply for the visa until you know you qualify, which can delay the process. You need proof that you’re competing in the tournament to get approval.
It seems like a very convoluted and annoying situation. I am not fully convinced it’s political, but there must be a way to make the process make more sense.
Oh well, not like they’re missing much out in Salt Lake City.