Chosen Championship Set for July 23 in Ghana

Credit: Gold Star Gaming

The Esports Association Ghana and Los Angeles-based, African American-owned gaming and esports agency Gold Standard Gaming announced Thursday the Chosen Championship Esports Tournament, a multi-title esports competition taking place July 23, at Otium Game Hub in Accra. The Chosen Championship will feature competitions in such games as Mortal Kombat 11, FIFA 23, and TEKKEN 7.

This is one of the first major esports competitions for the West African nation, and carries an overall prize pool of 30,000 GHS (nearly $2.7K USD)—the largest esports prize pool in Ghanaian history, according to organizers. The second largest prize pool was for FIFA 19 tournament Conquest 2019 Accra, which doled out 16,833 GHS ($1,493 USD), according to Esports Earnings. The amount of money might not seem like much to Western audiences, but the monthly take-home salary for an individual is around 5k GHS (from 1,280 – 22,600 GHS, or $113 – $2,005 USD), according to World Salaries and Salary Explorer data.

The competition also represents the second time that Gold Standard Gaming and Esports Association Ghana have worked together; in June of 2022 they hosted their first joint event, the MK Invitational Chosen Championship, which was also hosted at the Otium Game Hub in East Legon, Accra. That event saw 16 of the nation’s best Mortal Kombat players compete for a part of an overall prize pool of GH₵2,000 ($255).

Gold Standard Gaming CEO Sebastian “Chosen1” Burton talked about his plans to help make more esports events in Ghana a reality last year in an interview with Esports Africa News.

When asked what competitions like this mean to the country, Gold Standard Gaming CEO Sebastian “Chosen1” Burton told The Esports Advocate on Thursday that this event shows the growth of esports in Ghana and has the potential to create entry points into STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math)—as well as create solutions for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) issues at major technology companies throughout the world:

“I think that it means that the esports scene in Ghana that has already been growing—will continue to grow— and we hope to accelerate that process. We also hope that the esports scene will become a major conduit for Africans and Diasporas worldwide to be able to use it to promote STEAM. Esports is a huge gateway into those kinds of skillsets and we know that all the tech companies in the world have DEIB issues, so we feel that by introducing youth to esports and then seeing where they want to branch off in those spaces can help solve the DEIB crisis, but can also give them the tools and skills as entrepreneurs (or whatever it is they pursue in the future) in this new world that is becoming more increasingly digital.”

Looking ahead, Burton tells TEA that his company and Esports Association Ghana are already working on a follow-up event sometime in December. He also said that it could potentially have an overall prize pool that is two to three times the event in July—though those details are still being worked out and therefore not set in stone.

The Chosen Championship Esports Tournament is presented by Digital Diaspora, which is described as a “staffing agency with a mission to help solve the corporate DEIB crisis by creating career pathways for Diasporans across the world.” Those pathways include training in IT (HTML5, Google Cloud security, Comptia +, cloud service management), marketing & advertising (Meta ads certification, Google Analytics certification, Amazon PPC management, email marketing management, social media management), and AI (prompt engineering UX engineering, AI platform manager).