Navigating the iron cage: An institutional creation perspective of collegiate esports. (original) (raw)
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The global phenomenon of esports (or competitive gaming) unquestionably continues to grow. However, spaces, facilities and infrastructure remain understudied. Using U.S. collegiate esports as a microcosm of the broader industry, our work addresses perceptions of facilities, equipment, and infrastructure through in-depth interviews with teams, administrators and game makers in order to demonstrate how material conditions meaningfully limit expectations of what constitutes competitive play. We find that while administrators and players legitimize gameplay through their official facilities, the ad-hoc historical foundations of collegiate and professional esports push against institutional desires. This research therefore begins to reveal a picture of collegiate esports facilities that are still highly reliant on gaming norms and social capital, rather than trying to challenge the limits of competitive digital play.
Competitive Collegiate Esports Programs (Chapter 6.3, Routledge Handbook of Esports)
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This chapter provides an overview of stakeholders in the collegiate (i.e., higher education) competitive esports environment, including students; faculty, staff, and administrators; game studios; sponsors; tournament organizers, leagues; regulatory bodies; and venues for competition. It relays ongoing concerns regarding integrating esports into higher education institutions concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion; existing traditional sports; and scholarships. Along with interviews with the founders of two successful programs, the chapter concludes with advice on how to start a collegiate esports team. Key highlights include: 1) Despite esports’ significant growth in universities, integrating esports into the broader collegiate ecosystem is not without costs and infrastructural effort, 2) Collegiate esports appeals to numerous on and off campus stakeholders, 3) There are many types of competitive esports programs, including varsity, junior varsity, competitive and recreational clubs which are housed and operated differently based on institutional investment and interest, 4) Ongoing issues in collegiate esports stem from student and academic life: diversity, equity, and inclusion; integrating into existing sports structures; and difficulties surrounding scholarships and promotion, and 5) Preparing proper academic and competitive institutional scaffolding while retaining an entrepreneurial and flexible mindset is necessary for collegiate esports program success.
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This study explores game companies’ power and hegemony within the playing field of US collegiate esports. Built on interviews with players, university administrators, tournament organizers and game companies, our work highlights how collegiate esports provide a vital lens for seeing how game companies, institutions and players set game culture. As the field is trying to find its footing on campuses, fundamental questions of political (regarding policies of tournaments), structural and cultural control remain unclear, particularly when game publishers own intellectual property rights and organize tournaments within which colleges compete. In this field of unequal power relationships, hegemony of game companies emerges at different moments of policy, structure, and culture.
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Drawing on sociocultural theories of learning, this case study describes how a small liberal arts university, steeped in a tradition of innovation and discovery, developed and introduced an interdisciplinary academic and applied esports program. The study describes the importance of a multi-interdisciplinary approach to program development and building community, drawn from the voices and expertise of interdepartmental stakeholders including administration, faculty, staff, and students. The authors share the timeline of events and lessons learned in launching a successful esports program by applying an entrepreneurial mindset and accepting an appropriate level of risk.
No reason to LoL at LoL: The addition of esports to intercollegiate athletic departments
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The electronic sports, or eSports, industry has grown into a multi-million dollar industry. The significant growth of eSports can be seen far beyond the participation numbers and spans from eSports' events being hosted in major arenas and televised on ESPN. Most recently eSports were added to intercollegiate athletic departments. Though eSports has gained a lot of momentum economically and in popularity, academic research and study in the area of eSports is still in its infancy. This paper presents: (1) a brief history of eSports, (2) a further developed definition of eSports, (3) eSports size and market scope, (4) and provides an overview of eSports in intercollegiate athletics to date. The main goals of this paper are to create awareness around the economic growth of eSports and shed light on the potential positive implications of adding eSports to intercollegiate athletic departments. Boosting participation numbers, revenue generation, and creating diversity within an athletic department are all considered in this paper.
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This study aims to discuss the purpose of higher education esports academic programs, offer the first known comprehensive worldwide inventory, and conduct a comparative content analysis of their curricula. Data was collected through structured internet searches, global esports academic research networks, and personal correspondence. Underpinned by Diffusion of Innovations Theory's construct of innovation adoption (Rogers, 2003), data was analyzed through a systematic iterative comparative content analysis. Findings revealed 95 esports bachelor's degree, master's degree, technical degree (i.e., diploma), certificate, or undergraduate minor programs delivered by 74 higher education institutions, primarily located in North America and Europe. The vast majority of these programs (80%) focused on esports business (e.g., management, marketing) and, on average, these programs required 5.7 (SD = 3.4; range 1-15) esports-specific courses (i.e., modules). Moreover, findings also revealed that there are at least 16 other higher education institutions that provide stand-alone esports courses that do not also offer esports academic programs. Current trends and ideas around esports content being taught and career opportunities regarding future directions of esports academic curriculum are presented. Program content and structure discussed are important for esports industry job hiring decision-makers, prospective esports students, esports faculty members, esports researchers, and higher education administrators.
The Risks and Rewards of Collegiate Esports
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As participation in electronic sports (esports) continues to expand globally, colleges and universities are considering how such competitive video gaming might impact recruitment, retention, and the overall student engagement experience. This mixed-methods study focuses on the perceptions of college students in both the United States and Italy regarding the esports phenomenon. A compilation of the research findings from two case studies compared and contrasted themes associated with the benefits and risks to college students participating in esports. The findings highlighted the notion that even during challenging times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the college students in this study were still driven to invest their time in esports play. However, the risks such as those of addiction, health impairment, and social isolation may outweigh the perceived benefits to game play. Included are critical considerations and policy recommendations for campus esports programs as well as future ...
The Fandom Frontier: Understanding the Limitless(?) Potential of Collegiate Esports Fans
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Collegiate esports has expanded rapidly in the United States, with over 200 programs founded countrywide since 2014 (Bauer-Wolf 2019). Students increasingly participate in collegiate esports as players, broadcasters, and support staff, while university faculty and staff take on administrative and organizational roles. With this seemingly limitless expansion, research focused on collegiate esports has grown accordingly (e.g., Hoffman, Pauketat, and Varzeas 2022), addressing an array of questions regarding student esports athletes’ campus role (Schaeperkoetter et al. 2017), whether esports qualify as intercollegiate sport (Jenny et al. 2017; Walton, Lower-Hoppe, and Horger 2020), and how programs engage student labor (Harris et al. 2022). Research has even discussed how to build programs effectively (Pizzo, Jones, and Funk 2019), and how to address concerns about diversity, inclusion, and Title IX, the U.S. law mandating gender equity in educational institutions (N. Taylor and Stout 2020; AnyKey 2019). Still understudied, however, is fans’ role in the collegiate esports environment. This cohort is key to understanding the limits of competitive gameplay on campuses, as they can legitimize programs to university administrations. Studies of professional esports recognize fans’ role in tournament attendance and spectatorship, and in supporting esports players, teams, and brands (Pizzo et al. 2018; T. L. Taylor 2012), but less research focuses on their collegiate-level counterparts.
Recasting Collegiate Esports: Independence and Interdependence of University Twitch Streamers
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Few online communities exhibit the tensions between independence and interdependence better than collegiate esports. Twitch, the primary platform for live streaming esports, is central in such strife. The platform is a vital tool for colleges and athletes to forward brand, community, and entrepreneurship, while simultaneously its unbridled use indicates the need for administration and institutional interventions by universities. As such the proposed study aims to illuminate how collegiate esports clubs, including players, administrators, and program directors, use Twitch to promote independence and interdependence with esports publishers, players, fans, and college culture. Preliminary findings from 19 interviews with athletes and directors suggest some commonalities, particularly in optimism about the platform as a tool for entree into the industry. However, beyond this, directors and athletes diverged when it came to how Twitch should be employed, the labor required to successfull...
Sport Management Review, 2019
High-profile sport governance associations tend to remain intact despite numerous issues that would predict their demise. As such, these types of associations offer valuable contexts for understanding institutional maintenance work. The authors conducted a historical case study of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the U.S. More than 7000 pages of documents spanning more than 100 years were analyzed to document how the NCAA rose to dominance in a contested field and cemented its governance as the taken-forgranted model of collegiate and amateur sport in the U.S. despite numerous issues that would predict the association's demise. Findings suggest that the NCAA evolved its methods for controlling institutional boundaries, practices, and cognitions as means for maintaining its dominance. By expanding its boundaries, adjusting its practices, and framing member and public cognitions, the NCAA has been able to create an institution that is responsive to members and defensible against legitimate contestations.