Thousands of spectators watched the College of William & Mary compete against the University of Delaware last fall. Only this time, it wasn’t for a football game.
The annual homecoming football game between W&M and the University of Delaware was canceled in October because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s when W&M worked together with their Colonial Athletic Association rivals to instead hold an esports event between the two schools.
Esports — or electronic sports — is competitive video gaming, and it’s primarily done in organized, multiplayer video game competitions between professional players, either as individuals or as teams.
Michele King, director of Esports at W&M and chair of the Esports Advisory Board, wrote about the experience in a Nov. 2 article for SportBusiness. The idea for the event came from Tony Doody, University of Delaware’s director of student centers, and was organized by Tyler Schrodt, president of the Electronic Gaming Federation.
The esports Homecoming event was held Oct. 20-23 and was live streamed on Twitch, an online video service that focuses on video games, including esports broadcasts. More than 5,000 people tuned in online to watch W&M gamers compete during homecoming week, as chat rooms exploded with Tribe pride, King said in a phone interview Tuesday.
“If you go to any (sports) games, you have people in the stands cheering them on,” King said. “Well if you watch on Twitch, you’re right there in the chat room, rooting for your favorite gamer at W&M.”
This is the first year for W&M’s newly formed esports teams, which includes 34 student gamers who represent the university in national competitions, as well as their six coaches. These national competitions are organized mostly through the Electronic Gaming Federation, the nation’s governing body for high school level and collegiate Division 1 esports leagues.
On March 4, W&M held a grand opening for its Esports Training and Research Center on the Williamsburg campus. This center serves as a lab for student research and internships, as well as a place to train and host competitive gaming tournaments, according to a W&M news release.
The new training and research center is the result of a university-wide effort led by the Esports Advisory Board, a task force of W&M faculty and staff that was organized in 2019 to evaluate esports as a university program for academics and applied gaming. The board led the program’s steering committee while working with the faculty task force, and is now responsible for overseeing W&M’s esports academic programming and competitive teams.
The center’s coursework and research opportunities will focus on interrelated disciplines and topics, such as the potential of games for learning, the health and wellness of student gamers, and diversity and inclusion in gaming, among others.
W&M’s Esports program offered the university’s inaugural Introduction to Esports course last winter, and will offer an “Esports Level-Up” program beginning this summer. The program will offer courses that apply esports to fields including education, communication and marketing.
King said the goal is to create a pipeline for students to get into different facets of this growing industry.
“Not only are they going to get a foundation with the rigors of W&M, but they’re going to get experiential learning through hands-on application,” King said.
Students have also helped guide this project, including W&M’s seven “Esports Pioneers.” Each of these students serve a different role in W&M’s esports program that’s based on their career interests, ranging from media and communications to analytics and mental health.
Tyler Standfield, a junior and one of the program’s Esports Pioneers, serves in a financial and organizational outreach role, based on his business analytics and data science background.
Last week, Pepsi approved a sponsorship proposal that Standfield, 20, had written. As part of this new sponsorship deal, they received their first cases of Mountain Dew Rise energy drinks Wednesday, which they will promote through their esports program.
Standfield said his role in esports has allowed him to support the program by applying his data science background, and he’s learned more about the business side of the esports industry.
“It’s been very helpful in understanding things outside of my coursework,” he said.
There’s also Nicholas Kaufman, another junior and Esports Pioneer who specializes in esports analytics. Kaufman, 21, applies his data analytics background to study data metrics from their team’s matches, in order to help their players strategize and improve their performances. He will also use his skills to help other program objectives this year, such as evaluating player wellness.
Kaufman said in a phone interview that he hopes to one day use these skills in the field of health care analytics, with the goal of improving health care system access and quality of care.
“I think that it’s a very unique academic opportunity to get hands on experience with data analytics,” he said. “But honestly too — just starting a program from the ground up — I think I’m learning a lot of lessons outside of data analytics that are going to be meaningful to me going forward.”
The university has five teams that compete during the fall and spring competitive seasons, including their “FIFA,” “Overwatch,” “Rocket League” and “Super Smash Bros.” teams in the EGF varsity league, and their “League of Legends” team that competes via College League of Legends, a student-led network of players from college campuses across the U.S. and Canada.
The teams train and compete weekly during the fall and spring seasons, and even fully remote W&M students who are not on campus can train and compete with their teams online. The teams reserve training times at the center to allow for social distancing in the rooms, along with other necessary COVID-19 protocols.
In addition to competition and learning, the esports program is also helping to foster a sense of community.
Bryce Peiper is a senior and a member of the university’s “Super Smash Bros” EGF varsity league team, which will advance to their conference championship stage later this month. Peiper, 22, said his teammates have become some of his best friends through each week of practice.
“It’s a really great time with great people,” he said in a phone interview.
The university’s competitive esports program collaborates with the W&M Esports Club, which has its own channel on Discord, a free video, voice and text app that’s popular among gamers. King said this channel requires a W&M email address and is open to all W&M students, whether they want to play games or just spectate and hang out. As of Wednesday, the channel has more than 280 members, King said, with different sub-channels for students to connect and play different games.
The channel helped Standfield stay connected when he was studying remotely last semester from his home in Lawrenceville, Georgia, due to the pandemic. “It’s super accessible, (and) it’s very easy to be a part of,” he said.
Hannah Smith is a W&M senior and the captain of the university’s “FIFA” esports team, which is preparing for their conference playoffs this April. Smith, 22, is also the first female captain for W&M’s competitive esports teams.
For Smith, that sense of community is what she’s liked most about the esports program that’s growing in W&M’s inclusive, equitable and open environment.
“It’s about developing relationships, and gaining new information about the industry, and about competing in general, that can help benefit you moving forward,” Smith said. “It’s really just a culmination of different aspects of regular life, but also can be correlated towards gaming and the esports world.”
Alex Perry, 757-285-9397, alexander.perry@virginiamedia.com
