Esports in Sarawak 2026: The Third-Biggest Scene in Malaysia Plays PUBG Mobile

Executive Summary

• Sarawak hosted 29 tracked grassroots esports events in 2026 — third in Malaysia, ahead of Johor and Pulau Pinang, despite a fraction of their population density.
• 20 of those 29 events are PUBG Mobile. Nationally Mobile Legends outnumbers PUBG Mobile more than two to one. In Sarawak that ratio inverts — a pattern found in no other state.
• Sarawak hosts more PUBG Mobile events than the entire Klang Valley combined, and every single one of them is offline.

How big is the esports scene in Sarawak?

Third in the country. Of the 265 physical grassroots esports events tracked across Malaysia between January and July 2026, 29 were in Sarawak — behind only Selangor (59) and Kuala Lumpur (48), and ahead of Johor (20), Melaka (16) and Pulau Pinang (12).

That ranking is the part people get wrong. Sarawak is routinely treated as peripheral to Malaysian esports, a place the circuit visits rather than a scene in its own right. The listings say otherwise: it out-hosts every state on the peninsula except the two that contain the capital.

Sarawak is PUBG Mobile country

PUBG Mobile appears in 20 of Sarawak’s 29 events — roughly two thirds of everything that happens there. Mobile Legends, the title that defines Malaysian esports everywhere else, manages 6. EA Sports FC also gets 6, which is a lot for a state this size.

To see how abnormal that is, look at where PUBG Mobile events happen nationally:

Sarawak hosts twice as many PUBG Mobile events as Kuala Lumpur, and more than Kuala Lumpur and Selangor combined. This is the single most concentrated regional pattern anywhere in the Malaysian data. Sarawak did not follow the Mobile Legends script that the rest of the country followed.

One more detail worth sitting with: not one Sarawak PUBG Mobile event was online. All 20 were played in a physical room. For a scene often assumed to be connectivity-constrained, Sarawak’s esports is more physical than the Klang Valley’s, not less.

Where in Sarawak

The state is not one scene, it is several. Named venues put events in Kuching, Bintulu, Sibu, Kapit, Bau, Mukah — with Kuching the busiest, but a meaningful tail well beyond it. Bintulu, Sibu and even Kapit appear in the listings, which is not something you can say of most peninsular states outside their capital.

The venue mix tells you who is doing the organising: UNIMAS and University of Technology Sarawak in Sibu, CENTEXS in Lundu and Kuching, SEGi College Sarawak, Plaza Merdeka in Kuching. Campuses, technical training centres and malls — institutions with rooms, not esports companies with arenas. See our directory of Malaysian esports facilities for the venue layer nationally.

A caution on the geography: for 1 Sarawak event the state was inferred from a landmark rather than read directly from the venue string, and 16 of the 29 events do not name a city in a way we can parse — so treat the city split as indicative and the state total as solid.

What Sarawak pays

18 of the 29 events state a prize, totalling RM40,030 with a median of RM2,000 — exactly the national median for open tournaments. Sarawak is not a cheap scene or a rich one. It is a normal Malaysian grassroots scene that happens to be much busier than its reputation.

Note the shape of that list: the biggest event in Sarawak all year pays RM7,000. There is no Sarawak equivalent of the RM70,000 MSL Championship. The state has depth, not height — lots of events, none of them large.

Local Insight: what Sarawak is telling the rest of the industry

Two things, and both are commercially useful.

First, regional taste in Malaysia is real and nobody has mapped it. Sarawak is PUBG Mobile country. Johor is a football-game state. Selangor is the fighting-game capital. If you are planning a national roadshow off a Klang Valley title assumption, you will land in Kuching with the wrong game.

Second, the scene is built on borrowed institutional rooms — campuses, CENTEXS, malls — which means the constraint in Sarawak is not demand, it is organising capacity. The events happen because a lecturer or a mall marketing manager makes them happen, on a weekend, usually alone. That is the same story as the rest of the country, just further from the people writing about it. Our national data pillar has the full picture, and the organiser directory lists who is running events where.

Method and source

Source: esportscentral.my event listings, pulled 15 July 2026. Scope: 414 events dated 2026 in Malaysia — 372 open community-tier events and 42 professional circuit events, separated by whether the prize pool is denominated in ringgit or US dollars. Full method and the caveats are in the Malaysian esports data pillar.

Read these numbers honestly: they cover events listed on esportscentral.my — small kampung and campus tournaments never get posted, so every figure is a floor, not a total. August-onward listings are incomplete because organisers publish only two to six weeks ahead, so this is a January to July 2026 picture. Game-title counts are “events featuring the title”: events running more than one title appear in more than one row, so those rows must never be added together. Prize medians are nearest-rank.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many esports tournaments are held in Sarawak?

We counted 29 tracked grassroots esports events in Sarawak between January and July 2026. That makes it the third most active state in Malaysia, behind only Selangor (59) and Kuala Lumpur (48), and ahead of Johor and Pulau Pinang.

What game is most popular in Sarawak esports?

PUBG Mobile, by a wide margin. It appears in 20 of Sarawak’s 29 tracked 2026 events — roughly two thirds. Mobile Legends, which dominates every other Malaysian state, features in just 6.

Why does Sarawak play PUBG Mobile instead of Mobile Legends?

The data shows the pattern clearly but does not explain it, and we will not invent a reason. What we can say is that it is unique: Sarawak hosts more PUBG Mobile events than Kuala Lumpur and Selangor combined, and it is the only state in Malaysia where PUBG Mobile outnumbers Mobile Legends.

Where are esports tournaments held in Sarawak?

Mostly in institutional venues rather than esports arenas — UNIMAS, University of Technology Sarawak in Sibu, CENTEXS in Lundu and Kuching, SEGi College Sarawak, and Plaza Merdeka in Kuching. Kuching is busiest, but Bintulu, Sibu and Kapit all appear in the 2026 listings.

How much do esports tournaments in Sarawak pay?

The median Sarawak event with a stated prize pays RM2,000, identical to the national median for open tournaments. Across 18 events with a stated prize the total was RM40,030. The largest single event of 2026 paid RM7,000.

Call to Action

KITAMEN runs esports events the length of Malaysia, Borneo included, and the Sarawak numbers are the argument for taking the east coast of the country seriously. If you are a brand, a campus or a council planning an event there, contact KITAMEN or explore our services. Running it yourself? Dafta handles registration and QR check-in, free.

Related Knowledgebase Articles

• Esports Tournaments in Malaysia 2026: 353 You Can Actually Enter
• Esports Facilities in Malaysia 2026: Gaming Hubs, Arenas and Venues
• Who Organises Esports Tournaments in Malaysia? The 2026 Directory
• How to Organize an Esports Tournament in Malaysia (2026)
• Esports in Malaysia by Game: The Title-by-Title Guide 2026

Versi Bahasa Melayu

Sarawak menganjurkan 29 acara esukan akar umbi yang direkodkan antara Januari dan Julai 2026 — ketiga tertinggi di Malaysia, mendahului Johor dan Pulau Pinang, walaupun kepadatan penduduknya jauh lebih rendah.

Yang paling menarik: 20 daripada 29 acara itu ialah PUBG Mobile — kira-kira dua pertiga. Di peringkat kebangsaan, Mobile Legends mengatasi PUBG Mobile lebih dua kali ganda; di Sarawak nisbah itu terbalik sepenuhnya. Sarawak menganjurkan lebih banyak acara PUBG Mobile daripada Kuala Lumpur dan Selangor digabungkan, dan kesemuanya diadakan secara fizikal, bukan dalam talian.

Acara berlangsung di Kuching, Bintulu, Sibu dan Kapit, biasanya di kampus (UNIMAS, Universiti Teknologi Sarawak), pusat latihan CENTEXS, atau pusat beli-belah seperti Plaza Merdeka. Hadiah pertengahan ialah RM2,000, sama dengan paras kebangsaan.

Pengajarannya untuk industri: citarasa permainan mengikut wilayah itu nyata dan belum dipetakan. Sarawak ialah negeri PUBG Mobile, Johor negeri permainan bola sepak, Selangor pula ibu kota permainan pertarungan. Jika anda merancang jelajah kebangsaan berdasarkan andaian Lembah Klang, anda akan tersilap tajuk apabila sampai di Kuching.