• Esports tournaments can continue, where traditional sports have stopped
• Esports is the fastest growing sport in Sri Lanka, and is now an official Sri Lankan sport
• Forward thinking brands have partnered with Gamer.LK to run Esports events
• Over 3,000 people are taking part in Esports events from home
• Esports viewership is increasing with more people watching from home 

With sports coming to a grinding halt during these unprecedented times, there’s one sport that has the flexibility to continue. Thanks to its digital nature, Electronic Sports allow athletes to connect to their competitors directly through the cloud, all while staying safe at home. Esports, gazetted as the 70th Sri Lankan sport by the Sports MInistry in September last year has been recognised as the fastest growing sport in Sri Lanka based on its fast growing number of participants and spectators.

Gamer.LK decided to cancel SLCG – the largest physical Esports tournament in the country – in early March where 10,000 participants and spectators were expected to gather over 3 days. With physical events off the table, Gamer.LK has moved competitions online. Partnering with some forward thinking brands, Gamer.LK is currently running multiple tournaments with over 3,000 Esports athletes connecting to their matches from home.

Red Bull Fight or Flight – 1,200+ participants signed up
Samsung Online Esports Showdown – 2,000+ participants signed up
Play From Home live streams powered by Sri Lanka Telecom – reach of over half a million and racked up 180,000+ views.

With gamers being at home, they are flocking to watch the local competitive Esports scene. Esports are well positioned as a spectator sport with high skilled matches getting tens of thousands of views. Red Bull Fight or Flight matches have so far received over 300,000 views across 6 days of competition with the climax of the tournament set for 11th April where the best PUBG Mobile squads will battle it out for a prize pool of Rs. 250,000 presented by Gamer.LK.

This year’s Gamer.LK Clans Dota 2 League (GCDL) Season 14 kicked off 27th January with the same tournament system set up by GLK for online league tournaments; a Challenger League and a Pro League. The Challenger League was an open tournament with 38 teams registering. The top 2 teams of this Challenger League were given the opportunity to play in the Pro League.

Aathal Gaming and 683 made it through to the Pro League where they got to face the top 6 ranked Dota 2 teams in the country which are Sara Kolla, Tactical Nuke, nA – Team Phase, nA – Pirates, x3 – Origin Unknown and nA – The Unpredictables.

x3 – Origins Unknown placed third after defeating xxx in the semifinals 3-1.

Here’s what x3 – Origins Unknown had to say after placing third;

We are proud to have accomplished what we did. It was a brand new team and we did not expect to overcome the challenges before us. The team had a lot of fun as well.

After an exciting one month, the Pro League concluded on the 17th of March where Sara Kollo beat Tactical Nuke 3-2 to become the champions of Gamer.LK Clans Dota 2 League (GCDL) Season 14.

Tactical Nuke after becoming the runner-up, they had this to say;

GCDL has always been one of the most awaited online tournaments every year. The new implementation of a league system proved to be very successful in improving the competitive experience of the whole community. We are honored and proud to have been a part of a climactic grand finals against Sara Kollo, going to a game 5, even though we came in second place. We hope GCDL will continue to provide a path for upcoming dota 2 teams to showcase their talents on a competitive level.

We are awaiting for a statement from the Champion Team Sara Kollo.

Stay tuned with Gamer.LK for more updates.