An earnest appeal...

OKI Gaming provides a much needed youth development programme.

OKI Gaming, an affiliate of Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA), has been renting its new facility and has not yet managed to get any financial backing or support from all of their efforts from reaching out to people and companies.

Though OKI Gaming has made great progress, and  has introduced a lot of youth into the world of E-Sport, we have met people who believe in what we are doing and that it can work given the adequate support.

We managed to get Supersport's support and airtime to showcase one of the events we plan to host, a gaming festival in the West Rand, once the COVID-19 situation settles down. It will be televised on one of their channels.

OKI Gaming will also get assistance from MSSA and Ekasi E-Sport in hosting the event.

Red Bull has supplied a monthly supply of energy drinks to help create that esport environment at the venue.

Due to the lack of a reliable internet connection and adequate computers, we are using our PS4 consoles with mouse and keyboards to assist players play Fortnite -  and that is going very well.

OKI Gaming is also running an exciting female development programme which they are hoping to use to introduce more females into mainline competitive gaming and see more females earn Provincial, National, and Protea Colours.

OKI Gaming is also part of a group with the Stellenbosch University students to do a case study on esport and our business as part of their research project.

With MSSA's assistance, OKI Gaming officials, are looking at making an application to the National Lottery Trust Fund (NLTF). Such applications are available to all MSSA member clubs that have at least two year's Audited Annual Financial Statements.

Unfortunately many organizations to which the club has reached out are not able to assist due to their strain from the pandemic.

With much of the club's 'war-chest' from 2020 being depleted, the club could be looking at the end of  the road should support not be forthcoming anytime soon.

Thus the club, Oki Gaming, has embarked on a crowdfunding project. 

You can help a lot, not only by just supporting, but also by sharing about the club's project, so please have a look! https://www.airfunding.net/s/1544ff18-4b4b-4582-ab7a-40fc5df11c57

Why we need inter-provincials in eSports

2014 Protea eSports Team for DotA 2

As Desmond Kurz stated:

"The greater media (Supersport, SABC, eTV, Sunday Times, etc.) does not understand

Clans and Guilds and concepts like that. Take it from me, I have tried. However, they do understand the concept of Western Province and Protea teams because it falls into their frame of reference. So, its much easier to get exposure for gamers when they are part of a Protea Team or Provincial Team. Ok, so this is why a gamer should care:

The more media coverage, the more the players involved can become known to the "non-gaming" audience and the more noticed they are by potential local sponsors. These gamers become known, go back to their clan or guild with a degree of fame that then makes the clans more attractive to potential local sponsors.

I saw this happen with the Cape Town vs Gauteng (North vs South) event last year - we had 5 TV crews covering the event including SABC Sports who aired the segment in the sports section of the main news bulletin at 8pm. When last did a competitive gaming event get that coverage? It really was an experiment to see if we could get gamers that coverage if we packaged the event in a way they (the media) could understand...and it seemingly worked.

I know we can already compete in overseas events, this is true and we will get international coverage which will translate back to sponsor interest but I think that's a longer process that what I have described above (hard to feature in competitions overly subscribed with properly salaried professional teams when we are not yet at that level) .

Does this make sense or is my logic flawed?"

From what Desmond has to say, just another thing MSSA is getting right!

If only....

Finland vs MWEB Protea eSports Team

Turning on my television my senses were again bombarded by cricket...

Now that is all well and good, especially for cricket  lovers, but for those who do not really care much for  cricket (which quite frankly) is  the majority of the population, it is  somewhat of a bore!

One can also only imagine if all of the other sports were given the same amount of coverage, how much bigger and better funded would those sports be?

Even 'Cinderella' sports would grow exponentially as many of such sports would  be much more interesting to watch, and with increased advertising would be able to far more entertaining to the viewer at home.

However, for eSports, which already, in my opinion, is in the  top five watched sports, increased TV coverage would see benefits accrue  to players  on a never-before-level.
Yet SABC TV, and SUPERSPORT stick to the tried-and-tested recipe and will probably only change once they have  realised that they are flogging a 'dead-horse'.