Dustani Barrow, Business Development and Marketing Coordinator of gaming enterprise iBet Supreme, says that the recent E-Sports Championship, the iBet Supreme FIFA 20 ‘League of Champions’ tournament, was a success.
He made that disclosure during an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday. Barrow declared, “This inaugural tournament has been seen as a success. It accomplished all of its aims that we had for it. It was seen as such a success that we are already in the planning stages of our next eSports tournament which we should be launching very shortly.”
He added:“It was a good tournament. When we came up with the concept, we knew that there would be a few issues especially technical ones. But the issues weren’t as great as we thought. The biggest issue that we had was internet connectivity which caused us not to have contestants from throughout Guyana
According to Barrow, the tournament was conceptualized to keep their audience and customers engaged during the current Covid-19 pandemic.
“After conditions brought on by Covid-19 and the whole social distancing measures, we sought a way to keep our customers and audience engaged, so this eSports initiative came up, we did some research and found that eSports is one of the biggest and fastest growing markets in the world right now.”
He added, “If you look at some of the major TV networks like Sportsmax, ESPN etc., there are segments dedicated to eSports, you have footballers playing FIFA tournaments, basketballers and other athletes as well. It was almost a no-brainer for us and it goes with the evolution of the gaming industry in Guyana.”
Barrow revealed that the company will be instituting measures to improve the quality and capacity of future endeavours.
“In terms of what measures have been put in place for future tournaments, we have already been speaking to the different telecommunication companies in order to work with them so that when we have participants in certain areas, we will be able to help them with better connectivity. We also have other solutions that we will be looking to put in place.
“In terms of shortcomings that we had, like anything in its infantile stage, we have realized there are better ways of doing certain things. During the last tournament we provided a document on expectations and ways of better doing stuff, so we will be reviewing that document and improving on the shortcomings we had.”
Emuwnah Pross was crowned in the inaugural champion of the iBet Supreme FIFA 20 ‘League of Champions’ e-Sports tournament, defeating Tevin Bremner 3-1 on May 8th. It was a virtual rematch of the 2018 UEFA Champions League final, as Pross, who represented the famous white shirt of Spain’s Real Madrid, defeated Bremner and England’s Liverpool 3-1, to clinch the coveted title.
In the earlier third place playoff, Jonathon Hutson (Manchester City) brushed aside Pernell Cummings (Manchester United) 7-1 in the Manchester Derby. The event was contested using an elimination two-leg format (except final and third place playoff) and consisted of players battling with their favorite European club for bragging rights and the label of best in the nation.
The other sponsors of the event were Banks DIH under their Monster Energy Drink, Church’s Chicken, A&A Gamespot, Smoke Shack and NCN.
