Intel CEO to play in charity esports match at Intel® Extreme Masters San Jose

Intel’s leader to play in a League of Legends exhibition match to raise funds for The Cybersmile Foundation

ESL, the world’s largest esports company, today announced that Intel CEO, Brian Krzanich, will be participating in a charity League of Legends match at the upcoming Intel® Extreme Masters San Jose event. Krzanich will be joined by nine celebrity gamers to play a round of League of Legends “ARAM” (All Random, All Mid) in front of 7,500 attendees at the SAP Center in a bid to raise both money and awareness for The Cybersmile Foundation.

“I’m a big fan of eSports gaming and after attending Intel Extreme Masters last year I wanted to be in on the action,” Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO said.  “It’s exciting to get to play a match at such a large event as IEM and to be able to game for good to raise money for The Cybersmile Foundation.”

“It’s brave of a CEO of any company to go on stage and be willing to showcase his skills to a very demanding audience of over a hundred thousand people,” says Michal Blicharz, VP Pro Gaming at ESL. “I have never seen anything like this in my ten year history with esports.”

Brian Krzanich prepared for the challenge with a coach from ESL. The amount raised for charity will depend on the performance of his team. An amount of money will be donated for every in-game objective completed and for every point scored by Krzanich and his team mates.

The match takes place on Saturday, November 21 as the third match of the day with an estimated start time of 4 p.m. PT. (The game will be played on one of the event’s main stages and will be streamed live on Twitch. Both teams will be comprised of former professional League of Legends players, similar to the League of Legends ARAM match played at the 2014 IEM San Jose event.

IEM San Jose will be played on November 21-22 and will feature professional League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitions with an aggregate prize purse of $175,000.  Some of the world’s best gamers will be in attendance, including teams from USA, China, South Korea, France, Poland, Ukraine and Brazil.

For more information about Intel Extreme Masters, visit www.intelextrememasters.com. Additional material on The Cybersmile Foundation can be found at www.cybersmile.org.

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