Leo Xtreme

The idea

On 3 June 2025, at a meeting of the newly chartered Leo Club of Siliguri Metro, I proposed our first large event: a Free Fire and BGMI tournament to build a fund for future charity work. The 30 to 35 members agreed after some debate. Within a week we had a logo, a poster, registration forms and a signed agreement with NEXIS School of Business for the venue.

What went wrong

A delegation from our club went to the MD 322 Leo convention in Kaziranga. When we came back, nothing was moving. Registrations had stalled. I called more than a hundred eSports players in and around Siliguri myself, and most said no. Sponsors and venue partners wanted numbers before they would commit, and we didn't have any.

Then I found out someone had been telling players the event was a scam.

What fixed it

I took two days off from it and asked my dad for advice. He suggested putting our company's name behind the event, as proof that a real business would answer for it. Free Fire teams started signing up. BGMI still had no teams after a week, so I cancelled that half and told the venue partners we had to break the agreement. They weren't happy, but they understood.

More calls didn't work, because anyone running a scam would have made the same calls.

I've written separately about why that worked when a hundred phone calls didn't: The rumour that nearly sank Leo Xtreme.

The result

The team was demoralised, so I spent late nights on calls with them, spoke to sponsors, finalised caterers and ran the logistics. We built a tiered sponsorship deck, and the day before the event we secured the sponsor for the cash prize. The event turned a profit. The winning team took home ₹10,000, and nearly all of the profit went on grain, flour and salt for our food donation drives. I received a memento for organising it.