What if your gaming skills could get you scholarship money to aid higher education? Sounds cool, right? That's where Mobile Premier League, India’s largest e-sports and mobile gaming platform's College Premier League (CPL) comes into play. CPL was launched last month as a college mobile gaming festival for college students.
As a part of this initiative, students will actively compete to win scholarships and cash prizes both at an individual level as well as at the institutional level, with the two top winners getting a chance to win Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 1 lakh to aid their higher education. There is no entry fee to be a part of CPL for college students.
Sai Srinivas, Co-Founder and CEO of MPL, tells us why and how it will encourage a lot of students, adding, "With CPL, we aim to take e-sports and the varied career opportunities the sector brings to every college in India. College fests and sports meets are a huge hit because there is the excitement of representing your college and competing with other colleges. We are bringing that excitement and vigour online too with the College Premier League. In this edition, there are four games on offer and eight students from a college for each game will be chosen to represent their institution on a national level. The best part about online sports is that the only infrastructure you need is a good smartphone and a working internet connection. However, e-sports has traditionally not been viewed through the same lens as physical sports meets or even extra-curricular activities. With CPL, we want to establish e-sports meets as a regular affair inside colleges all over the country."
Founded in 2018, MPL is one of the leading mobile gaming and e-sports platforms with over 60 million registered users. Though the company has seen huge traction on its platform after the COVID-19 outbreak, the recently concluded Indian Premier League was a huge success for them. According to MPL, the number of fantasy players on their platform increased almost seven-folds during IPL, compared to pre-IPL times, while daily installs increased by over 100 per cent.
CPL is a first-of-its-kind gaming event for college students in India as it is being conducted solely on the mobile and virtually on the MPL app. "This entire tournament will take place online unlike other college competitions and tournaments, which are mostly offline. This is the first time that an event of this magnitude, with over 100 colleges and more than 13,000 gamers from all across the country and Rs 1 crore worth of prizes and scholarships, is completely on mobile," claims Sai.
With CPL, MPL and its founders want to raise awareness about online sports being a viable career option, given the growth, it is seeing all over the world. With games like Speed Chess, the players get to test their skills online against top-notch competitors. With built-in-India games like Rogue Heist, players get to compete in first-person shooter (FPS) games for rewards and recognition and independent Indian game developers get to showcase their game to millions of people.
For the national-level finals, CPL is planning on bringing in internet celebrities and game streamers like Comedians Tanmay Bhat and Samay Raina, and the finalists will get to stream live with them on MPL as well as the celebrities’ official social media channels, potentially reaching close to five million subscribers and followers.
Speaking of their plans going forward, he concludes, "MPL has already instituted digital sports scholarships for deserving candidates. With CPL becoming a yearly affair, we aim to support e-sports athletes across different types of games and help them hone their skills. One of our first digital scholars is VS Rathanvel, an International Chess Master from Coimbatore, who won our Chess Mahayudh tournament last year. We want to make CPL a springboard for aspiring gamers to enter the international arena and compete with gamers from across the world."
