Esports has been added to the Khelo India Youth Games (KIYG) for the first time as a demonstration event featuring Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), Street Fighter 6, chess and efootball, a development that industry experts believe will help establish it as a mainstream sport.
While esports will be an official medal sport at the 2026 Asian Games, the first-ever Olympic Esports Games are scheduled to start in 2027.
Before its inclusion in KIYG 2025, hosts Bihar had organised the Bihar State Esports Open Championship and the Bihar Inter School and College Esports Championship in the past one year.
States like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Nagaland have also taken proactive steps to support and formalise grassroots esports programs.
Esports competitions will be held at the Patliputra Sports Complex on May 6 and 7, featuring popular titles on both mobile and console.
While BGMI remains the most popular esports title in India, chess stands out as a particularly noteworthy addition to KIYG 2025. Once considered a purely traditional sport, it has increasingly found a home in the esports world, most recently as part of the Esports World Cup (EWC) 2025, which has a prize pool of USD 1.5 million (Rs 12.6 crore) for the title.
“The inclusion of these titles in the Khelo India Youth Games 2025 signals a big step forward for grassroots esports in India,” said Akshat Rathee, Co-founder and Managing Director of NODWIN Gaming.
“It's encouraging to see esports standing shoulder to shoulder with traditional sports, and the addition of chess bridges classical and digital strategy, showing how in tune this initiative is with global trends. But this isn’t just about tournaments. It’s about creating real opportunities to discover talent from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, thus building the foundation for a future where Indian gamers dominate on the world stage,” said Rathee.
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