For the second consecutive fall semester, the students in the TESM-G 299 Exploratory Aspects of Esports Event Production course successfully developed and executed an eSports event on campus.
After spending months recruiting students to compete and developing a script while learning the foundations of eSports, live streamed events, and how to stream live events, the five students in the course flawlessly executed a four-team, double-elimination tournament on December 13 at the 2024 eSports Event Production Course Invitational featuring Rocket League, which took place in the newly renovated eSports gaming lab in the ICTC building.
Each student took on a role on tournament day and in the lead up to the event. Each student was responsible for recruiting as many teams as possible with the original intent of an 8-team tournament. However, at the last minute, the students were finally able to secure a fourth team, and the tournament was able to proceed as planned.
Junior Madilyn Loosle served as the event manager and shoutcaster talent, while senior Kenzie Pittenger led the way as emcee and talent. Junior Trey Wallace served as a shoutcaster as well as logistics coordinator for hospitality. Junior Connor Murphy was also a logistics coordinator while serving as associate producer of the event. Junior informatics major Jose Garrido-Iniguez served as director for the live-streamed event by operating OBS Studio during the event.
The four teams that participated included a variety of majors with a majority coming from the sports management major. The team of Caden Phillips, Jacob McDaniel, and Colin Lee successfully defended their title under the team name “World of Demos”. This trio also competes for IU Indianapolis in the collegiate eSports circuit.
The team of Fernando Flores, Oreoluwa Ajagbonna, and Mustafa Fattah (team name Ducks) finished as the runner-up while TKE was represented by Donnie Trainor, Shane Milner, and Aiden Trainor. The final team, a last minute replacement, came from the sports management major with seniors Vincent Medina, Noah Williams, and Garrett Chida making their way over to the IT building after their final capstone presentations that morning.
Throughout the semester, the five students in the course learned about the eSports industry, heard from four guest speakers ranging from the director of competition for Fortnite and Rocket League to the product manager for Twitch Rivals, and learned how to operate OBS Studio, which is the primary software package used by gaming streamers around the world.
The event marks the second straight fall semester where students were able to execute an eSports event on campus after nine students staged a five-team, pool play tournament in December of 2023.
This year’s event could not have taken place without the help of Gamers Hall, the student organization devoted to competitive gaming on campus, the Sports Management Club, which provided its YouTube channel for streaming the event live, and Brooke Bonek, who took the position as the first-ever eSports specialist on campus and guided us through the technology elements involved with the tournament.
Check out the competition stream here:
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