🔒Virtual Gameday: Esports facilities, curriculums growing on CT college campuses

In 2020, the League of Legends World Championship, a multiplayer professional online video game competition, attracted more than 100 million viewers worldwide, a bigger audience than last year’s Super Bowl.

While video games have long been a multibillion-dollar industry, the online viewership through platforms like YouTube and Twitch — a live streaming service that focuses on video game content and competitions — has not only added a new revenue stream to the industry but also created a new category of competition called esports, which have exploded globally, especially at the high school and collegiate levels.

While many colleges have built gaming centers in recent years to attract gamers — some even offering gaming scholarships — others, including a handful of Connecticut higher-ed institutions have begun offering formal curriculum-based programs in esports, an industry that is expected to grow more than 66 percent from $957 million in 2019 to more than $1.6 billion by 2024, according to market projections from Statista.

One of those schools is New Haven-based Albertus Magnus College, which has launched a new 18-credit minor in esports administration and management. Courses include introduction to esports, convention and event planning, sports marketing and promotion and ethics and sports management.

The latest offering comes on the heels of a game and computer arts bachelor’s degree program the school introduced in 2019. Both programs are currently only available to undergraduate students.

“The [esports] program is designed to introduce students to the business side of esports, … including the promotional side of these games and tournaments, TV and social media,” said Kristen DeCarli, director of Albertus’ sports management program and a former assistant athletic director at the school.

In 2019, according to a NewZoo Global Esports Market Report, there were 885 major esports events globally that collectively generated more than $56 million in ticket sales.

While the pandemic derailed many in-person esports events in 2020, it accelerated the industry’s online viewership, sponsorships and media rights, which accounted for more than 80 percent of the sector’s $1 billion in revenue last year.

Even professional sports leagues — including Major League Baseball — are running their own esports events to garner fan interest.

Last year, more than 474 million people worldwide watched esports, up nearly 9 percent year-over-year, NewZoo data found, with roughly one-third of that core audience between the ages 16 and 24, a key target market for colleges.

“Esports can be a way [for students] to get their foot in the door in a number of different industries, including professional and collegiate sports,” DeCarli said.

Tech company partners

And it’s not just the business aspects of the industry making gaming centers more common on college campuses; it’s the social, recreational and multidisciplinary educational opportunities too, says George Claffey, chief information officer at New Britain-based Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), which opened a new high-tech esports center in September 2020.

The facility, which included the involvement of tech companies Dell and Microsoft, cost $300,000 and reflects a growing trend on campuses across the country.

This year, CCSU has more than 300 esports and gaming club members — up from 150 students in 2020 — and also features an intercollegiate team of 60 students who compete in Eastern College Athletic Conference gaming events. While CCSU does not currently offer any esports-specific degree programs, its gaming center has been incorporated across a number of academic disciplines since it opened.

In fact, this year the school offered a lightweight grant competition — awarding $30,000 across 12 grants — to encourage faculty to find innovative ways to leverage the gaming center in their courses.

A geographic information systems professor, for instance, found the center helpful for exploring the 3D rendering of topographical maps, while an English professor used the gaming center to practice storytelling by having the class develop a video-game storyline, given the elaborate character narratives common in many modern games.

The gaming center has also helped create student bonding experiences and better connects CCSU’s commuters with on-campus students, Claffey said.

“Students that might [not otherwise] have met, connect in our esports room,” Claffey said. “And it helps students feel like they’re meeting other students and peers as part of a community that is also interested in esports and gaming.”

Increased demand

Esports academic programs have also been a draw. Jim McGregor, chairperson and professor of recreation, tourism, and sports management at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, which launched an esports minor in the spring of 2020, said esports classes have been at capacity every semester.

“We were [hearing] increased demand from students [to offer] a more formal program relative to gaming,” McGregor said.

He said the program has drawn interest from across the academic spectrum, including business, communications and computer science majors.

It’s a trend McGregor said he sees continuing as esports and gaming teams proliferate at the high school level and draw more interest from prospective students.

In 2018, Connecticut became one of the first states to offer competitive K-12 esports. The state’s colleges have followed suit.

Waterbury-based Post University is debuting a gaming and esports management major at both the undergraduate and graduate levels this spring, and the University of New Haven — which features a 1,300-square-foot esports training and competition center — has been offering esports-related degrees since 2019.