Behind the scenes of the Carry1st Africa Cup: A bold new chapter for African esports
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This interview was written by MENA games industry insider Stephen Sandmann. To learn more about the MENA region, check out the Dubai GameExpo Summit 2025 powered by Pocket Gamer Connects on May 7th and 8th.
With a $15,000 prize pool, The Carry1st Africa Cup aims to boost local representation in global esports with the largest African Call of Duty: Mobile tournament. But what challenges did they face? Here is a behind-the-scenes look at the Carry1st Africa Cup Tournament.
Mobile games publisher Carry1st launched its inaugural Carry1st Africa Cup tournament starting in Nigeria. This esports tournament has had qualifying rounds in Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, and Kenya, with the final showdown set to take place in Kenya.
The Cup represents a significant step forward for the African esports scene. African esports and related games markets have much revenue potential, with a projected value of $1 billion by the end of 2024, according to research by Newzoo. An esports tournament of this scale for Call of Duty: Mobile has never been done in Africa.
I spoke with Oluwaseun Aladelo, one of the organisers and Carry1st’s CODM community manager, about how the tournament came to be, the challenges the team faced putting on an event of this scale, and what they have planned for the future.
Stephen Sandmann: What inspired the creation of the Carry1st Africa Cup?
Oluwaseun Aladelo: For years, African teams haven’t had the opportunity to participate in major tournaments like the Call of Duty World Championship.
There were no qualifiers in the region, and many felt left out. After receiving feedback from the community, we decided to create our own tournament, where teams from across Africa could compete and represent the continent in esports.
What were some of the challenges you faced in organising the tournament?
It was extremely tough. We didn’t have sponsors when we started and some thought the idea was too ambitious. However, planning an esports competition of this scale with six countries participating offered an exciting chance to showcase something unique.
“We didn’t have sponsors when we started and some thought the idea was too ambitious.”
Oluwaseun Aladelo
Achieving perfect alignment across multiple countries with stakeholders was vital, and we’re proud of the fantastic team effort that has led to this one-of-a-kind tournament’s ongoing success. Another challenge we had to anticipate to ensure everything would run smoothly was logistics and IT requirements throughout the tournament.
For example, certain countries experienced high latency due to limited server availability in Africa. We hope to improve this in the future and have been taking active steps towards it.
How did you manage to gather support for the tournament?
We hosted a launch event at the GamerX Awards in Lagos, which gave us the perfect platform to announce the tournament. This helped generate excitement and interest from potential sponsors and partners.
Since then, we’ve been working hard to engage with stakeholders and grow the tournament into a bigger event that aspiring esports players can enjoy for years to come.
What’s the long-term vision for the Carry1st Africa Cup?
Our goal is to make this an annual event involving even more African countries. Ideally, we’d love to see African teams competing on the global stage in events like the Call of Duty World Championship.
As part of this, expanding server infrastructure across the continent will also become a crucial step in levelling the playing field and making the competition fairer for everyone. We strongly believe that is critical for the future of mobile gaming in Africa. For example, we assisted with the rollout of Call of Duty: Mobile servers in Nigeria late last year.
“Ideally, we’d love to see African teams competing on the global stage in events like the Call of Duty World Championship.”
Oluwaseun Aladelo
The Carry1st Africa Cup is a bold step in elevating African esports, overcoming significant challenges to bring the continent’s gamers onto the global stage. With a vision for growth, Carry1st aims to support African talent and position African esports to have a stronger international presence.
The Carry1st Africa Cup’s qualifying rounds have been action-packed and are almost complete, with only Kenyan qualifiers left to go. Find out which teams have made it this far on the Carry1st Cup site.
On November 23rd and 24th, qualifying teams from across the continent will battle it out at the Grand Finals in Nairobi, Kenya, where the Carry1st Africa Cup winners will be crowned. Live streams will be on Carry1st’s YouTube and TikTok.
