The next Olympics Kenyan athletes will seek to participate in are not the Los Angeles Games in 2028 but rather the Olympic Esports Games to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2027.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has incorporated Esports to keep pace with the global digital revolution and to make the Olympic brand attractive to young people.
Taking the cue from its parent organisation, the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) officially recognised the Kenya Esports Federation in January 2025.
“We are in the same pedestal as Football Kenya, Athletics Kenya. You look at institutions, Mount Kenya University has become the first university in East and Central Africa to officially recognise Esports as part of its co-curricular activity. Counties and embassies are also embracing Esports,” said Ronny Lusigi, the President of the Kenya Esports Federation.
Lusigi was speaking on the sidelines of Safaricom’s Engineering Summit, Decode 3.0. For the second year running, gaming and Esports were prominent features. Various panel discussions on the two as well as an Amazon Web Services (AWS) stand with its gaming portals all proved to be quite popular with attendees.
According to a report by Carry1st, an African gaming and digital content publisher, and Newzoo, a PC and console gamer research platform, Africa’s gaming market reached a revenue of $1.8 billion in 2024.
Meanwhile, a ‘Gaming in Africa Survey’ conducted by Geopoll / Pan Africa Gaming Group (PAGG) found that 32 per cent of the 2,500 respondents polled engaged in gaming for three or more hours daily.
The inaugural Esports World Cup held in Saudi Arabia in 2024 welcomed more than 1,500 of the world’s best esports players from over 100 countries. Over 500 million viewers consumed over 250 million hours of content across the eight-week competition, making it the most-watched tournament last year. The World Champions Team Falcons won $7 million.
The Olympics is the pinnacle of sports and according to Lusigi, Kenyan gamers now have a chance to etch their names in history,: “Through Esports we will create new national heroes, national ambassadors, who are on the same pedigree as Kipchoge Keino and Eliud Kipchoge.”
Safaricom saw the potential early and partnered with the gaming community through the BLAZE Esports tournament in 2019. Now the tech-co aims to play a key part in Kenya’s Olympics Esports journey.
“We want Safaricom network to be known as the gaming network of Kenya. We need to deliver 5G bundles that deliver high speed but are also reasonably priced specifically for gaming. So that will come,” promised Fawzia Ali Kimanthi the Chief Consumer Business Officer at Safaricom during an interview with Safaricom Newsroom at Decode 3.0.
Watch the video below to see how the making of the first Kenyan Esports Olympian is unfolding.
