ESL has been making waves all over the world as of recent. Despite being a European presence exclusively for quite sometime, 2016 marked the year where ESL would begin it’s world domination for global eSports (seriously they’re everywhere now.) However, much like various other prominent eSports entities, they have yet to make a splash on the African continent, which is pretty much the final continent to be braced with eSports and it seems ESL will be the first ones to get things going.
Earlier this week, the Electronic Sports League announced that they will be holding their first ever eSport championship on the African continent in their ESL African Championship, presented by Kwesé. ESL will be collaborating alongside Kwesé Sports and Econet Media’s premium sports content platform to put on the large-scale show that will be the ESL African Championships.
The tournament is set to feature the titles Counter Strike: Global Offensive and HearthStone, giving South African players and top HearthStone players from all over the world to compete. A total prize pool of R2.000.000 will be present for the 2017 season, which equals to about $150,000.
The tournament series set to kickoff this month and will run until June. From there, a second series will kick off in July, with the grand finals of second series taking place in October at the rAge Gaming Expo in the Ticketpro Dome of Johannesburg. During the grand finals, the top four teams and players in both CS:GO and the HearthStone tournament series will go head to head as they fight to earn their title as champions. ESL has released a comprehensive image of how the series structure will play-out.
It’s really exciting to hear that the African region will be receiving eSports support in a more grand-scale, hopefully the continent will be able to embrace it more openly than the North America did when eSports began to start to take-off on a more larger-scale, here. ESL’s own Malte Barth had the following to say regarding the announcement of the ESL Africa Championship:
“We are excited to bring the ESL African Championship to the local esports community. By giving gamers the opportunity to compete at the leading global leagues and tournaments, we help them pave their way to create legendary moments within the ESL esports universe. Together with our partner Kwesé, we are committed to making the ESL African Championship a great success!”
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