We know that eSports are becoming a global phenomenon, but underneath all of the sexy stories involving a few, superstar teams raking in cash on the professional circuit, there’s a true “amateur” scene developing on college campuses across the nation. This isn’t just a few gaming clubs making a name for themselves amidst the tough competition.
Blizzard, the company behind Overwatch, Starcraft and Hearthstone are going all-in with Heroes of the Dorm, a March-Madness style tournament in which dozens of major colleges pit their best to win their entire college tuition in Blizzard’s MOBA, Heroes of the Storm.
With the high stakes competition comes drama, but eSports are still growing from a niche within a niche. Gaming has had a negative stigma for years, yet the rapid growth and acceptance of gaming on Twitch and YouTube has led to an understanding of gaming culture and its sporting aspect. Now, Blizzard is laying the groundwork for their eSports to not only dominate their peers in the gaming industry, but to lay the develop a sporting culture in schools as a way for students to represent their schools and possibly move up to the big leagues.
So how do you create a sport, develop a league, get hundreds of schools involved, market it, keep the sport pure and maintain growth from its genesis to a point in which its an accepted, major sports league? We spoke to Blizzard’s Adam Rosen, a forefather of eSports and the lead man behind Blizzard’s college scene.
If you told someone ten years ago that pro franchises were being founded and you we’re going to have major colleges involved in a national eSports March Madness tournament, I don’t think anyone really would have believed you. So where are you going to see this going ten years from now?
First of all, I totally agree nobody would believe that ten years ago. I think all of us had a hope that it would get there, but I don’t know if any of us even believed it at that point either. Ten years from now, where is college e-sports going to be? I think if we look at it, there’s probably a couple different angles that we will see evolve over the next ten years. One, I think is the university level. Right now we’re starting through programs like Heroes of the Dorm to see colleges themselves, the university leadership, really start to get behind their teams, start to support them. We’ve had some universities create training facilities on campus, and hire coaches.
We’ve seen some other universities start to scholarship their students full time for playing on their e-sports teams. I think, when we look in we’re going to see a really, really healthy e-sport system at the university level, much like we see with traditional sports where I think not only will universities be providing facilities, and scholarships, and coaches, and all that good stuff that you need to have a successful team, I think we’re also going to see the teams promoted on a lane that’s on par with sports teams like for example football, or basketball team. I think we’re also, really importantly going to see an ecosystem where high school students are sometimes selecting their universities based off their eSports program, and high school students are getting scholarships to go to universities based on their e-sports skills, and I think when we look ten years out, that foundation within the colligate level will link to things, I think, across the eSports ecosystem where just like where traditional sports are such an essential part of the college experience today, I think we’re going to see that with e-sports as well.
Obviously, Blizzard has a lot to do with this, and I’m assuming you had to approach these colleges and say “look, this is becoming much bigger, and there is not only a market here, but the kids want to do this”. Did you personally have to pitch colleges on these tournaments and these communities growing and the clubs, and did they go cross-eyed when you pitched them?
You know it’s really interesting. There’s a couple of different angels there. I think, when we look at college eSports, we look at it from two sides. We look at it from the both community side, but also from the competitive side, so on the community side, we run an organization called Tespa which is, essentially you can think of it kind of like a fraternity for gaming or for e-Sports where we have 220 chapters across North America, where students on their campuses are hosting really big events growing communities. Essentially, doing these great activities around these sports on their campus for the students on their campuses, and I think through that we’ve seen a lot of universities take note, and want to get involved with that because they see the really cool thing that their students are doing, but also see that this is really interesting. These students are creating these big events, and we want to empower them.
On the competitive side, when we first started Heroes of the Dorm, I think a lot of universities still were really, really questioning eSports. Right? Is this bad? Is this something that students are wasting their time on? Is this something that hurts academics? What we’ve seen today, this is the third year that we’ve hosted Heroes of the Dorm now, it’s completely different from the universities. The universities are starting to look at eSports as a way that they can help to develop their student body and support something that these students love doing, they’re seeing it as a way that they can begin to get their name out and they can compete with other universities across the united states, and I think we’re looking at these sports objectively.
One of the most interesting things that we see from a university level with eSports where the students participating in Heroes of the Dorm is that these students who are participating are sometimes up to 70 percent STEM majors which is something that universities really, really look at and are interested in, so I think those factors coming together creates the compelling ecosystem for collegiate eSports, and I think it’s only going to grow from here.
When we look at what universities are doing to support specifically, I know for the Heroic Four, we’re going to have four university teams coming and competing, and I think a lot of the university leadership is going to be looking at that event to really understand a little bit more about eSports, and what makes it so compelling to their students, but also to cheer on their teams and root them.
I think what we’ve seen in the past with the way that universities have supported their teams, whether it’s through tweets or training facilities. For example, last year after ASU won, the university actually brought the team out, honored them in front of a baseball game, gave them official team jerseys, and gave them housing scholarships for the rest of their college careers as long as they were playing. I think we’re going to see more of that sort of stuff as universities really become exposed to eSports in a high level of competition that’s here.
Will eSports make it when you see the trophies from Heroes of the Storm next to the basketball trophies as kids are going on a tour of a college? Is that the ultimate goal?
I think that’s totally one of the ultimate goals. eSports needs to be recognized on a level that is equal to, maybe even who knows, maybe surpassing traditional sports in the future. I know that a lot of universities who are participating this year are really looking at it as, you know, another form of competition that they can jump in and hopefully win at.
I know UC Irvine is looking at eSports from a number of different ways, and is such that the competition, that competitive aspect, is one portion of it. They would love to have that trophy to point to, and have it next to their other sports trophies, but they’re also looking at it from a complete perspective where they see academic opportunities here, research opportunities, student life opportunities, so I think in the future, when we look at competition in eSports, yes. Absolutely that trophy should be sitting there. I think that’s one of many ways that we measure the success of collegiate eSports in the future.
The Heroes Of The Storm documentary and ones like it are doing their job of getting the casuals, and getting the people who don’t even understand about the sport in. It’s a high barrier of entry but how do you keep these people? How do you get them to stay?
One of the things that we realized is that in order for the competitions to reach new audiences and to really transcend what every other eSport competition in the world piratically does, we have to find a new angle. We really thought about what compelled us to watch, and what compelled us to take part in sporting events like March Madness, I think a big portion of it is the story.
With Heroes of the Dorm, I think we have a big opportunity because you can jump in if you’re not super hardcore, you’re not even an eSports viewer at all, you probably don’t know who Cloud Nine or FNATIC are, but you’ve probably heard of UC Arlington, UCONN, you’ve probably heard of Cal. Right? I think the leveraging the collegiate names, and the storylines there helped to lower that barrier to entry in a way that the first time viewer can hop in, bite a hook, and then, hopefully, fall in love from there.
What we’ve also tried to really emphasize is telling story lines through stats and through human interest. It isn’t necessarily that there’s just amazing gameplay. It’s that “wow this player is about to break a record,” or this team is about to go at this competition for the third time, and they’ve been training for three years. Is this the moment that they finally break through? I think the documentary has a lot of that, and I think the broadcast this coming weekend will have a lot of that as well.
It makes a lot of sense. You tell the human interest story, and we stick with some of these teams, possibly for years and it seems like you guys are putting so much ground work into developing this community, but what happens if these kids just move on, and they don’t make it in Heroes of the Storm, and they just decide to play a different game?
I think that’s totally fine. In fact, when we look at the eSports ecosystem, I think one of the things that we realize is that we’re building an infrastructure and a foundation not for today, not for next year, but for ten years from now. I think it’s probably natural that the games that someone plays today will be different from the games that they’re playing ten years from now, but what we hope is that we’re able to develop a foundational structure that allows competition and in future years we’ll have students to find ways to become involved over the next ten years as well.
When we’re putting together these programs and trying to decide how we structure and how we present it, a lot of what’s in the back of our minds is how do we build the best foundation so that ten years from now, regardless of what games people are playing, regardless of what’s popular we have a really compelling collegiate eSports ecosystem that lasts the test of time, and is bigger and better than ever.
I think what’s unique about this is that Blizzard is essentially being the NCAA creating a sport, maintaining a sport, being the commission for the sport, and developing the talent for the sport. How difficult is it to step out and see the forest from the trees and make iterations to improve across all of those pillars?
We are seeing, definitely, there’s a lot of work that goes into hosting all of these leagues, but I think we do ourselves a good service if we think of these leagues and these events as one. With every decision that we make, we’re constantly thinking about the future and the world that we’re building and how Heroes of the Dorm and all these other collegiate leagues fit into that. I think our pieces are a bigger puzzle. You’re totally right. It can be challenging to step outside of that and look at the bigger picture, but it’s something that try really hard to do because we see it as really foundational to our success in the long term.
In the grand scheme of things, the NBA is 70-some years old, or so, Heroes of the Storm is only like two years old. Are you guys thinking, genuinely, I know this is a crazy question to ask, but when I started the interview, ten years from now is one thing, but realistically, has it been said, “hey where are we going to be 30, 40, 50 years from now?”
We thought about it. I think we all have a vision for what eSports, and what collegiate eSports is. We like to think of it in that 3, 5, 10 year range. When we think about what guides us there, it’s really the vision of what this ecosystem can become. I think if we’re holding towards that, and making our decisions with that as our backbone, then we’re lining pretty well towards whatever that long-term horizon is, however long that is.
Is there a ceiling that you feel like the eSport industry is going to reach and then you’ll need a transcendent team or an athlete that will be able to further push the fandom of the sport?
I think Heroes of the Storm specifically is very much a team sport. I think just like in sports where we have some teams that are very much adored and famous, right, within their communities. I think we have the same thing with eSports. I think that just like those teams have certain players who are maybe the best it takes the team to perform and if there is a single great player, but no team to back that player up and no coordination on the team to back that player up that they won’t be making it very far. I think that one of the interesting things that we’ve seen with Heroes of the Dorm is that we have seen a lot of instances of these really great players. The only way I think that they’ve been successful in the past is that when they are able to pull together a team and teach the team to think as one and to act as a single body, right, moving towards the objective at the same time, right, making the right calls in game.
We’ve had a couple of cool instances of this. I think one that comes to mind immediately is the Arizona state game last year. ASU won the tournament last year and after that, two of their players teamed up with a player from another one of the schools and entered as a professional team and are doing very well competing with in the Heroes Gold Circuit, so I think that’s really interesting. I think that that’s also a testament to the teamwork that’s needed here. It can’t just be a single player that’s pushing the team to victory. It really requires a lot of really skilled and really talented people coming together
Would you say that eSports, because they are based purely on merit, are technically the purest sport?
Pure. Huh. Very interesting. I think you could probably make an argument for that. I think each sport is a little bit different from, actually, I don’t know. I question how much eSports is actually different from traditional sports. I think it is, often time, less athletic, but I think you have the same amount of mental fortitude required to be successful. You have the same amount of training required to be successful. You have, perhaps, even more quick reflexes required and dexterity and agility to be able to succeed.
When I think about the sport, and what makes a sport pure right, I think the one thing that comes to mind is competition. I do think that eSports are a really, really high-level competition and one of the purest levels of competition because oftentimes it does take out some of those other elements that might hold players back from being their best. When you are an eSports athlete, you are sitting down and facing off against someone using mostly your mind. I think that’s a really cool thing.
It’s great to have the winners to build a legacy and people can latch onto that, but the losers in sports are actually just as important because without Cleveland losing for 50 years, LeBron James winning with the Cavs last summer wouldn’t be as important, or Gonzaga going to the finals in March Madness. How can you cultivate not only a history of winners but a history long enough to have teams that can be underdogs as well.
I completely agree. I think the underdog story is incredibly important. How do we cultivate it? I think we cultivate it by making sure that we are successfully hosting these sorts of leagues over a long enough time period where those stories can start to develop and start to really become great. I think we’ve seen bits and pieces of that so far. For example, ASU lost the first Heroes of the Dorm to CAL, and they came back and won it last year. UC Arlington made it to the finals last year, but lost to ASU, and they’re coming back this year.
I think that sort resurgent and that sort of “I’m coming back and I’m taking it because it’s mine” story is really important, but then again, I also look towards all of the other teams within the tournament bracket as well who competed multiple years and lost and not even made it towards the finals. I think those are really interesting, and when we look, we can actually see through looking at stats about which teams are actually the underdogs. When we look at the 65,000 people that filled out fantasy brackets, and we see who they voted for, we can actually tell which team was the least voted team to make it towards the finals. That’s actually really cool because if we leverage those stats correctly, we can start to tell some of those stories and start to tell that message and create these personas maybe a little bit quicker than we would need to otherwise.
