JAKARTA, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia is holding an e-sports competition in capital Jakarta with the aim at fostering athletes in the country.
The tournament commenced on Tuesday and will run for just under three weeks, said Christian Wihananto, producer of Gerena Free Fire, the organizer of the event.
Under the theme "Free Fire Master League (FFML) Season 1", the event features a total of 24 professional e-sports teams, according to Wihananto on Tuesday.
"We hope this event will be able to create new e-sports athletes with a good achievement," said Wihananto.
The tournament offers a total prize of 1.2 billion rupiahs (some 87,900 U.S. dollars), he noted.
All the teams posting the top six position will get tickets to the grand final of the next tournament the "Free Fire Indonesian Masters 2020 Spring", local media reported.
The government has attempted to promote the sport by building communities of e-sports across the archipelago to make it more accessible.
Meanwhile, head of the Indonesian Creative Economy Council, Triawan Munaf, said the government is also considering classifying e-sports as an industry which has the potential to be tapped into.
