More than just competing for gaming glory, the esports teams in the ULeague Mobile Legends Charity Clash Tournament are helping in the fight against COVID-19.

Scheduled on Sept. 16 and 17, the Championship Round of the charity tournament will be livestreamed on the ULeague Facebook page. Proceeds from the ULeague teams in the Charity Clash Tournament were given to COVID-19 initiatives of various nonprofits as a way for the esports and gaming community to help vulnerable communities cope with the pandemic.

Helping nonprofits

“ULeague is a corporate league where companies, gamers, and professional esports athletes can engage in competition and promote the thriving esports industry. Esports is such an interesting industry and has seen tremendous growth in viewership and revenue in recent years,” said Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) Vice Chairman Justo A. Ortiz in a press statement.

During the quarantine period, ULeague launched the fully online Charity Clash Tournament featuring the popular game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

Four qualifying rounds were held featuring teams from several companies, including UnionBank and its subsidiaries CitySavings Bank, UBX and PETNET Inc. Also joining were UnionBank’s fintech partners, such as Coins.ph, XLOG, PDAX, Data Analytics Ventures, Inc., Dragonpay, Salarium, Banana Fintech, and EOI Digital.

All participating companies have pledged a donation which will go to nonprofit organizations. These include Caritas Manila’s Oplan Damayan and Contra COVID-19 program, as well as Kalipay Negrese Foundation’s distance learning program for children affected by the ongoing pandemic.

The winners and runner-ups from the previous rounds have earned a spot in the Championship Round, where they will compete for a cash prize of Php30,000.

Starting the ULeague

Seeing the tremendous growth and community engagement around esports, UnionBank spearheaded the creation of ULeague together with the Distributed Ledger Technology Association of the Philippines, Fintech Philippines Association, Tech Up Pilipinas Inc., and UnionBank’s online donation and payment collection platform called UShare.

ULeague’s start came when the bank realized many employees were avid gamers.

UnionBank started holding internal tournaments to engage them, build camaraderie, and understand the wider gaming community. Seeing much interest and positive feedback, UnionBank created ULeague as a way of sharing the experience with its partners and other corporates.

“The pandemic made us adjust to executing the tournament to be purely online, and we were able to do so while still keeping the spirit of competition and sportsmanship,” Ortiz said.