UNIVERSITY Esports, one of the most prominent university esports events in the world, has arrived in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) thanks to MENATech (MTE), GGTech’s regional affiliate. The registration is opened for UNIVERSITY Esports in the region.
The competition will allow university students from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Morocco to represent their universities and demonstrate their esports potential both nationally and internationally.
With the start of its activity in MENA, the company now has a presence in three continents and more than 25 countries. Reinforcing its commitment to the MENA Region, Mario Perez Guerreira, CEO of MENATech, said the following: “It is clear to us that the MENA region has become an esports powerhouse globally, competing even with some of the most veteran regions worldwide. At MENATech, we’ve had the opportunity to closely follow the brilliant development of the regional competitive environment.”
GGTech’s commitment to bringing the world of esports closer to the school environment led to the creation of UNIVERSITY Esports. What began as a small competition in Spain has grown to include over 1,200 universities in France, Italy, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia, with over 200,000 students playing.
Saudi Esports Federation’s CEO, Turki Alfawzan, said, “We are thrilled to partner with MENATech on this competition that allows university students not only to represent their universities but also to showcase their hidden talents. Our mission as the federation is to find talents, nurture them, and encourage their communities to flourish. These tournaments are the means to enable the industry by catalyzing it and enabling talent to flourish.”
UNIVERSITY Esports will benefit from the assistance of some of the region’s pioneering institutions in the development of esports in this first edition. UNIVERSITY Esports Saudi will benefit from the participation of the Saudi Esports Federation (SEF), one of the region’s most strong federations.
In the words of BME Global CEO, Ahmed El Goheiry, “As founders of Insomnia Egypt and leaders of the esports market in Egypt and the MENA region, we believe that the University Esports tour will add extensive value to the market and will help facilitate the discovery of new potential pro esports players! We are very delighted and excited to have been chosen to lead this project in Egypt!”
BME eSports, a fully integrated gaming and eSports solutions provider as well as an event planning and production behemoth, will be MTE’s local partner in Egypt. BME eSports has showed a strong dedication to the promotion of Egyptian esports, as well as supporting some of the top regional teams.
MENATech will enjoy the support of Riot Games and Epic Games during the competition, which, in addition to being two of the world’s most major publishers, have long been strong supporters of the league. Both organizations remain committed to UNIVERSITY Esports, allowing participants to compete in some of the greatest titles on the market, including Riot Games’ League of Legends and VALORANT, as well as Epic Games’ Fortnite.
Students from various universities will register once their teams have been formed, and the games they want to play have been selected. They can also follow the competition on Twitter at @universitymena (twitter/IG/Fb/YT) and Twitch at @universityesportsmena.
The expansion of esports has been relentless for the past two years all across the world. According to NewZoo, the number of esports players in the world has surpassed 2.5 billion, and the audience for esports-related events has surpassed 550 million. Over the next two years, annual growth of more than 9.8% is predicted. In terms of consumption, it is estimated that fans consumed approximately 104 minutes per day of esports-related content in the previous year, primarily through the use of two platforms, Twitch and YouTube, but this growth is even higher if we look at the 15 most popular games, which went from 500 million to 800 million hours viewed by 2020.
