The state of E-Sports in the Middle-East is akin to taking a car ride along a rather bumpy road that’s filled with ruts and potholes, only to discover that the road doesn’t really go anywhere in particular because it’s not connected to a wider network. A similar analogy was given to me by Karim and Nassim, the founders of Cyber Sports League, when I sat down to talk to them.
We first covered CSL a few months ago, where the dynamic duo told me about their vision for Cyber Sports League. Since then, they’ve made leaps and bounds when it comes to making e-sports mainstream in the Middle-East. They’ve been on the front page of Twitch multiple times, once garnering over 200,000 unique views for one of their CS:GO tournament livestreams, and in a few days they’ll be hosting a DOTA 2 Tournament that will have a grand prize pool of AED 14,500. As a result, they’ve been at the leading edge of the competition when it comes to revolutionising e-sports in the Middle East.
Ahead of this upcoming tournament, we decided to once more speak to both of Cyber Sports League’s Nassim and Karim about the growth of E-Sports locally as well as the problems plaguing the industry. You can watch the interview below:
