The tournament is a new addition to the BLAZE Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) empowerment and mentorship platform and targets both casual and avid gamers across the country.

“People from all over the world are making a living out professional gaming, which is why we have introduced an e-sports Tournament, to affirm to the youth that you can commercialize whatever skills and talents you have. Our commitment is to support the youth in their journey to economic empowerment, however unconventional it may be,” said Michael Joseph, Safaricom CEO.

The e-sports tournament will consist of FIFA 19 and Tekken 7 knockouts running on Play Station 4 and will be broken down into 10 grassroots knockouts and 5 regional finals. At least 64 players will enter at each knockout round, which will happen the week of every BLAZE BYOB Summit.

The regional finals will happen at the regional creation camps where champions from the knockouts will battle it out for the regional title and prize money.

A total of KES 100,000 is up for grabs in each region with winners taking home KES 50,000 second position KES 30,000 and third position KES 20,000.

In addition to the tournament, the gaming session will have gaming mentors such as Brian Diang’a alias Beast, who will speak on their journey to becoming professional gamers and share knowledge and opportunities in the gaming world. They will also advice aspiring gamers on what they need to do to be part of the eSports movement.

“Sports is one of the major events that define Kenyan culture. With the introduction of the BLAZE e-sports tournament, we want to provide a platform for our youth hone their talents talent and possibly earn a living from it,” said Mr. Joseph.

The partnership between BLAZE and Pro Series Gaming will see PSG manage the running of the tournament, while Standard Group comes on board as the tournament’s official media partner.

BLAZE is a sub-brand of Safaricom and was created to give youth aged 26 years and below products, services, and benefits tailored specifically to meet their everyday needs. A first of its kind platform in Kenya, East, and Central Africa, BLAZE was founded on what Kenyan youth say is most important to them: freedom, empowerment and the journey to self-discovery, ultimately leading to success.

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