HBCU Students Compete in 'Fortnite Tournament' via Brag House, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola
Brag House founder Lavell Juan is a visionary and charismatic entrepreneur who desires HBCU students and minorities to become financially engaged in the current Esports phenomenon.
In a partnership with Coca-Cola and McDonald's USA, Brag House has connected with students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to join the ‘Black & Positively Golden Gamers’ Tournament.
The HBCU gamers will battle with the ultra-popular online video game "Fortnite" and compete for one of three $15,000 scholarships provided by the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
HOW TO PLAY
"It's free for the HBCU students to play and participate in Fortnite competition," Juan told HBCU Legends. "One of the communities that I really wanted to do something for was the HBCU community. McDonald's put their full team behind it since they're already doing something with the Black & Positively Golden® Gamers. They asked to spearhead this with Brag House. So we put together the tournament structure and made it free to participate. Everything will be online so that you can compete in the comfort of your home."
As a Jurassic HBCU alum, I was excited about Lavell's project as I considered dusting off my old Atari system for the event. Old kidding aside, this is a "game changer" for many gaming enthusiasts. " One hundred different HBCU student gamers will play in each of four qualifiers on a first come, first served basis. So that means we can have a total of, if you know Fortnite, up to 400 students playing in a Fortnite solo game mode, which is awesome," Lavell Juan noted.
The HBCU student gamers will enter private battle royale lobbies created by Brag House, which means only gamers with a private invitation will be allowed into the tournament matches. The same students of a particular qualifier will compete in all five matches of that qualifier. The Top-25 student gamers on the aggregated scoreboard of each qualifier day will advance to the Grand Finale.
WHY ENGAGEMENT IS CRUCIAL
Juan is ecstatic as this weekend's event draws near. "It's very exciting! The first one will be Sunday, October 23, from 1 to 4 PM ET, and another that same day from 4-7 PM ET.
Since Brag House is a "vertically integrated social network for non-professional college gamers in their communities," Juan believes the tournament will unearth and connect with a hidden demographic that hasn't shared the resources and financial rewards of the lucrative gaming arena.
Lavell Juan is scratching an itch. How? Inside the HBCU community, gamers have been ignored by gaming system manufacturers, suppliers, online events, and serious fans.
"We have found that engagement is important. There may have been engagement but no opportunity to engage. HBCU students are already playing online. But maybe their school may not have an esports program. So, how do we capture this engagement? How do we get excited about this and give them [HBCU student gamers] other ways to engage? That's the reason why I like to call Brag House a social network for non-professional gamers. This engagement is through gaming. And I think that's an important thing."
Brag House has an ambassadorship program for students, allowing their partners to give back to the community via engagement with the students.
"Our major competitors were just the students who can do this alone but are not having the fun and the glory of the prize pool and that kind of stuff. So we said, why don't we give students what they have been doing, get the engagement since they spend time on different gaming platforms, and give them positive engagement opportunities."
HBCU students interested in participating can register online at Brag House.
The HBCU Tournament featuring Fortnite will be held from October 23 to December 17 and streamed via the Brag House app. The finals will be a live, in-person event in Atlanta, Georgia. Coca-Cola will host the awards and scholarship ceremony, including a private tour of their corporate headquarters.