Walt Disney's ESPN unit agreed to franchise its X Games concept to Dubai for five years as the Gulf emirate seeks to lure international competitors and spectators with the games' richest prize purse.

State-owned Dubai Event Management Corp. and ESPN will hold their first Dubai X Games World Cup in December when $2.5 million will be offered to the winners of events including skateboarding, quad bike racing and Moto X racing competitions, Dubai Event said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday.

The cup will "set the stage for hosting more high-visibility games that will position Dubai on the global sporting landscape," Dubai Event Chief Executive Officer Richard Attias said in the statement.

Dubai is spending billions of dollars to transform itself into a tourist destination that can attract 15 million visitors a year by 2015 as its oil wells run dry.

Projects designed to lure visitors include an airport bigger than Chicago's O'Hare and London's Heathrow combined, a theme park that's due to be three times the size of Manhattan and a $54 billion Las Vegas-style strip of hotels in the desert.