Telkom\u2019s Digital Gaming League recently rebranded as VS Gaming, and has renewed its focus on growing the South African eSports industry.<\/p>\n
The organisation recently announced it would host a\u00a0FIFA 17 tournament\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>in Johannesburg, which is open to the public and boasts a prize pool of R1.5 million.<\/p>\n MyBroadband spoke to VS Gaming CEO Cambridge Mokanyane about the future of eSports and its potential for growth in South Africa.<\/p>\n Mokanyane said the rising popularity of eSports could see it becoming one of the most popular spectator sports in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that eSports could be the third-biggest sport in South Africa after soccer and rugby, and could be the second-favourite spectator sport for many people,\u201d said Mokanyane.<\/p>\n VS Gaming has seen a steady increase in the local eSports audience and a growing interest in games for recreational and competitive purposes.<\/p>\n The organisation\u2019s FIFA 17 tournament appeals to competitive and casual gamers, in addition to a wider community, thanks to its inclusion of a music event.<\/p>\n Mokanyane said the spectator base for eSports has grown significantly in South Africa, and the average gamer spends 81 minutes a day either playing or viewing video games.<\/p>\n The company expects more clans, players, competitions, and organisations to become involved in the local scene, and prize money will increase.<\/p>\n Mokanyane said the prize pools for local competitions could see double-digit percentage increases until the market stabilises, and two to three dominant entities emerge as the main competitors in the market.<\/p>\n VS Gaming has partnered with SuperSport to broadcast its upcoming tournaments, in addition to streaming the events on YouTube and Twitch.<\/p>\n By delivering eSports to a more casual audience via TV, VS Gaming aims to expand the competitive gaming community in South Africa.<\/p>\n SuperSport has covered various eSports tournaments since it first aired the IEM World Championship in March 2016.<\/p>\n Since then, eSports coverage on local television has expanded to include a dedicated\u00a0eSports channel<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n In 2016, Telkom also announced its DGL Masters R1-million tournament for Dota 2 and CS:GO, which was the biggest in South Africa at the time.<\/p>\n One year later, and multiple tournaments with prize pools of over R1 million have been announced \u2013 a sign of things to come.<\/p>\n This article first appeared on MyBroadband<\/a><\/strong> and is republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n Telkom\u2019s Digital Gaming League recently rebranded as VS Gaming, and has renewed its focus on growing the South African eSports industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":97926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[289,1611,24363],"class_list":["post-118955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-competitive-gaming","tag-esports","tag-vs-gaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Massive eSports growth<\/h3>\n
Broadcasting<\/h3>\n
Now read:\u00a0VS Gaming to host R1.5-million FIFA 17 tournament<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"