Bahrain Esports Federation coach Mohamed Al Rowaihi has become the first Bahraini to earn a Master’s degree in Esports Management and Gaming.
Short for electronic sports, Esports is a form of organised competitions of multiplayer video games played between players as individuals or teams.
The 30-year-old engineer from Riffa earned the degree from ITTI Sports Institute, in collaboration with Spanish Barca Innovation Hub Universitas.
The course enabled him to expand his talent as a renowned Esports coach of five years standing, focusing on online competitive football video games EAFC (Electronic Arts Sports Football Club, previously known as Fifa,) and eFootball.
“When I decided to pursue the degree, the main idea was to build on my knowledge on the different aspects of the industry, how it operates and the major players in the industry,” Mr Al Rowaihi told the GDN. “The course had a number of modules, each one was delivered by an industry expert working at a big company or an owner of a start-up, and at the end of each module we were able to ask questions to those experts who give their experiences of the matter, which definitely helped develop my overall knowledge.
“The degree also highlighted how a person can create a career and a brand, and overall it was extremely beneficial for me,” he added.
The professional coach believes that the electronic sports field has great growth potential in the Middle East, encouraging him to continue pursuing his passion and to help grow the skills of Bahraini players, as he has been a part of the Bahrain Esports Federation since 2023, and since then has helped the team achieve several milestones.
The team’s most recent achievements include female player Aisha Bokhammas earning first place at the Arab Esports League in Saudi Arabia, and second place at the WAFF (West Asian Football Federation) tournament in Jordan, which both took place last year.
“The field of Esports has grown tremendously over the past years. The pandemic played a part as during Covid-19 witnessed a high growth in the number of top players because of the amount of time people had at home, which allowed them to practise.
“It’s also important to note that the Esports field does not only consist of players, but also professional analysts, influencers, editors, producers, marketeers, legal experts and much more, which allowed all sorts of people to get involved.
“I believe that taking a career in Esports is a great step for the future because of the many major projects within the industry, Saudi Arabia for example has been investing so much money by arranging international major tournaments, which really shows the amount of interest.”
Mr Al Rowaihi, who also enjoys putting on a pair of football boots and playing the great game on the pitch, discovered his skills when he tried coaching his brother in playing football video games by combining his knowledge of the sport with his brother’s gaming skills, which showed positive results.
“I have played conventional sports myself,”he explained. “I have been a football player, so when I coached my brother I taught him real life concepts and this knowledge, combined with his gaming skills, was useful to him.
“Since then, I have started developing my coaching skills and joined the federation. I grew in confidence and found myself capable enough to do it professionally.”
One of the biggest challenges, he added, was the need to continually adapt to new updates and stay in the loop, in order to coach the players accordingly for them to not fall behind.
“If we talk specifically about the football games, they are always changing. Whenever there’s a new update the game changes, so my responsibility is to follow up and accordingly change our tactics, it’s not easy because every professional player has a different style of play, so we have to tweak depending on each person’s style.
“My current main outlook is to maintain adapting and participating in Esports courses and conferences so that I can stay updated.”
Established in 2020, the Bahrain Esports Federation (BESF) is a non-profit organisation that promotes and develops Esports in Bahrain, and is recognised by the Youth Affairs Ministry, Bahrain Olympic Committee and the General Sports Authority.
n For more information, follow @besf.bh on Instagram.
rima@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))