University Esports is Amazon’s way of getting a foothold in the collegiate gaming scene. It sells itself as supporting student competition, but it’s really about locking in the next generation of Twitch viewers, Prime subscribers, and AWS customers. Every tournament and sponsorship ties young players deeper into Amazon’s profit machine, funding a corporation built on exploitation, surveillance, and political complicity.
Amazon is rated High Impact because its harms are systemic and interlocking.
Environmental Harm: Delivery fleets, aviation cargo, and data centers generate massive emissions and plastic waste, while public pledges mask lobbying against climate regulation.
Human Rights Violations: Workers face surveillance, injury-level quotas, and unsafe delivery speeds. Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere face wage theft and coercion.
Military & Conflict Complicity: AWS is central to surveillance states. Project Nimbus embeds Amazon in Israel’s occupation and war crimes, supplying AI and data services to its military and government.
The result: consumer spending that powers a machine which entrenches inequality, accelerates climate collapse, and sustains state violence worldwide.