Smash World Tour

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Smash World Tour

Official logo of the 2022 Smash World Tour
Game	Super Smash Bros. Melee Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Founded	March 1, 2020
First season	2020
Ceased	November 29, 2022
Owner(s)	Smash World Tour
Commissioner	Calvin "GimR" Lofton Matthew "Aposl" Lofton Justin Wykowski
Last champion(s)	Plup (Melee) MkLeo (Ultimate)
Official website	smashworldtour.com

The Smash World Tour (SWT) was an annual Super Smash Bros. tournament circuit operating all around the world, but based in the United States. It took place three consecutive years from 2020 to 2022, although only the 2021 edition was completed fully, and mostly consisted of a series of tournaments aiming to determine a number of players qualifying for the Smash World Championships, major singles tournaments for both Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate; the Championships themselves acted as the culmination of the tour, with the crowning of world champions for both games.

The inaugural 2020 edition of the tournament was announced on March 1, 2020; however the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of all offline Super Smash Bros. tournaments, and therefore the premature end of the tournament mid-March. It returned the following year, successfully completing, and returned once again in 2022. The 2021 Championship's prize pool of a combined $150,000 remains one of the highest prize pools for any event in Super Smash Bros. history, and the 2022 Championship's prize pool of $250,000 was set to be the highest in history. In total, the 2022 Smash World Tour included over 6,400 offline tournaments and featured over 325,000 players, making it the largest tour in the history of esports.

On November 29, 2022, less than two weeks before the 2022 Smash World Championships, SWT organizers announced the abrupt cancellation of both the 2022 Championships and the 2023 Smash World Tour, claiming to have been forced to shut down both by Super Smash Bros. publisher Nintendo. As part of their statement, they also accused Alan Bunney, the CEO and owner of Panda, another esports organization, of severe misconduct against the community, including efforts to sabotage the Smash World Tour in favor of the Panda Cup, a competing circuit organized by Panda which, unlike the SWT, was officially licensed by Nintendo. The announcement caused a major controversy in the competitive Super Smash Bros. community, and resulted in near-universal condemnation against both Nintendo, which denied some of the accusations and did not address the others, and Panda, which denied all accusations safe from one occurrence of misconduct from Bunney. Following further backslash, which saw a wave of resignations from Panda employees and many top players deciding to boycott the upcoming Panda Cup Finale, Panda announced the resignation of Bunney as CEO (but not owner) and the postponement of the Panda Cup Finale.