NIRSA Ideas in Motion

Esports Roundtable

Recorded on Monday, July 6, 11:00am PT / 2:00pm ET

Facilitated by Shana Kessler

Chat Transcript

00:20:33Scott Flickinger

Grrrrrrrrrrrreat!

00:21:30Crystal Durham

anyone who is a social media friend should know who yours is, Shana

00:21:38Nick White

Nick White Missouri S&T The Blue Ranger

00:21:39Jason McIntosh

Jason McIntosh, ggCircuit Esports Software, Spiderman.

00:21:41Steven Walton

Steven Walton - Creighton - Deadpool

00:21:41Ian W Hales

Ian Hales - CU Boulder - Faculty Adviser for CU Esports - Batman or Wolverine.

00:21:49Justin Griffin

Justin Griffin, University of Florida, Batman

00:21:50Lauren Newlin

Lauren Newlin, City Of Henderson, Black Widow

00:21:51Chris Keough

Chris Keough - Dalhousie University, NS, Canada- Wolverine

00:22:16Nick Remple

I'm Nick, I am a Student leader from The University of Colorado Boulder, and the Director of Events for the Gaming and Esports Organization

Doctor Strange

00:22:16Brian Smith

Good morning everyone, Cole from UCLA here. Favorite superhero is my mother, second favorite is Iron Man

00:22:22T S J

Tom St John--Stony Brook. Captain America

00:22:22Dominiqic Williams

Dominiqic Williams-University of Nebraska Omaha- Static Shock

00:22:25Crystal Durham - NAU

Crystal Durham, Northern Arizona University, Black Widow

00:22:34Nick White

just trying to get brownie point :-)

00:22:44Nikki Vance

Nikki Vance - University of Central Florida - Thor

00:22:49Jordan Garcia - CSUF

Jordan Garcia - IM & Camp GA from Cal State Fullerton, Iron Man

00:22:50Shaneisha Weir

Wonder Woman

00:22:57Shaneisha Weir

Harry Potter

00:23:03Drew Devore

Drew Devore- University of Minnesota Twin Cities- Flash

00:23:05Jason Darby

Green Ranger is the best Shana. We've been over this.

00:23:14Louis Hernandez

my uncle

00:23:25Dan Kratz

Dan Kratz-West Texas A&M University-Darkwing Duck

00:23:58Matt Melchior

Matt Melchior, MSUM, Batman

00:24:03Jason Darby

Jason Darby, Southern Miss

00:24:04Michael Wilson

Michael Wilson from Texas Woman's University, favorite super hero, Wolverine or Colossus

00:24:12Kevin Wilson

Kevin Wilson - Recent Graduate

00:24:23Kevin Wilson

Looking to get into the campus rec industry

00:24:35Julia Nobauer

Julia Nobauer - Kwantlen Polytechnic University - Ironman

00:24:43Roy Byers

Kil Byers from Houston Community College

00:26:17Philip Ems

Philip Ems - Pellissippi State Community College - Knoxville, TN

00:26:27Scott Lotze

PIRSA has been running tournaments all throughout the summer. Will be continuing in the Fall.

00:26:40Karen Mendoza

Greetings from Karen Mendoza at Bravous Esports! www.bravous.com.

00:27:26Nikki Vance

Florida has the Battle for Florida. FIFA was our spring sport. We'll do Rocket League this summer. Each participating school sends 2 entries.

00:28:17Chelsea Watson

Are people seeing more success with state tournaments when you focus on one sport?

00:29:03Steven Walton

We had a state of Nebraska eSport tournament that started in May. We had 99 participants over 4 games. We started off strong with very few forfeits, but as we got deeper into the summer we have seen more and more forfeits from the losers bracket.

00:29:05Jason Darby

MS ran two sports at a time offered on each console platform

00:29:44Chelsea Watson

Thanks!

00:32:51Kevin Wilson

Thanks for sharing that it can be as simple as sharing social media.... I think when we think of support and/or resources we often think of financial/space but knowing something as small as sharing social content definitely helps those who may not be able to support through financial/space

00:35:15Crystal Durham - NAU

we are partnering with our Health Promotions folks on campus for their "Live Free" sober events that are funded through a grant. We don't have to pay for student wages, prizes, etc. because they are all covered by the grant funding.

00:35:22Chelsea Watson

At UGA we are working with our Union programming board. They are hosting jackbox single night events and we are hosting leagues with FIFA, NBA2K, and other more traditional esports

00:35:43Luis Banda

Has anyone had luck on other platforms aside from traditional xBox, PS4, computer, Nintendo???

00:35:52Mike Wozniak

Is anyone using any other platforms besides Geex or IMLeagues to facilitate competition/record scores? We are having a hard time finding one that works well for us.

00:36:28CU - Ian Hales

Social media also legitimizes student org endeavours. When a student org see that the official university social channels are hyping their events and promoting upcoming content, its a huuuuuge moral booster and shows the university cares. (Note that this perspective comes from us at CU where official support is somewhat lagging behind many other schools)

00:36:41Drew Devore

@Mike: https://battlefy.com/

00:36:51Scott Flickinger

@Luis we've looked at cross-platform games to eliminate those barriers of single-console based games, like Rocket League.

00:37:04Julia Nobauer

Mike - We have been looking into Mission Control and GyoScore but haven't finalized on a platform yet

00:37:04CU - Nick Remple

Yeah it does benefit the community in two main ways:

It adds legitimacy to the group having a recognized campus entity reach out.

And it reaches an audience that the gaming/esports communities cannot reach

00:37:23Kil Byers, HCC

Is anyone using Mission Control? Any reviews would be helpful

00:37:30Jason McIntosh

We have an AtHome client for students off or on campus. Automatic stat tracking and a stat challenge for 7 esports titles. ggCircuit/ggLeap/AtHome. We support over 60 universities.

00:37:47Mike Wozniak

Our biggest issues have been connecting player names/student status with their usernames within the games.

00:38:33Brittany Burriss

Duke has been utilizing Mission Control for esports and I’d be happy to answer any specific questions anyone might have.. just shoot me an email - brittany.burriss@duke.edu

00:38:59Kil Byers, HCC

will do. Thanks brittany

00:39:12CU - Nick Remple

Battlefy is one of the better systems weve seen

00:39:34CU - Nick Remple

Smash.gg works well for the fighting games genre

00:40:20Dan Kratz

Mission Control has worked well for us here at West Texas A&M University. Their admin has been very helpful.

00:40:26Crystal Durham - NAU

same here, Shana. We already have issues with IMLeagues so I didn't want to complicate things

00:40:32Kelley Hungerford - NIRSA HQ

Here are NIRSA associate members that provide esports services: https://www.nirsa.org/wcm/Connect/Buyers_Guide/wcm/BG/BG_Search.aspx?WebsiteKey=75dea602-e911-478d-b061-91876fecc73d&Category=ESPORTS

00:41:32Jason Darby

Southern Miss hasn't looked at streaming for our rec leagues. The focus currently is getting participants engaged in the leagues.

00:41:59Shana Kessler

NIRSA Resources for esports: https://www.nirsa.org/wcm/Connect/Buyers_Guide/wcm/BG/BG_Search.aspx?WebsiteKey=75dea602-e911-478d-b061-91876fecc73d&Category=ESPORTS

00:42:47CU - Nick Remple

@jason One of the things that may be helpful if you have the means to is actually providing coverage on the games. Putting out tweets with Highlights from the games increases future participation by 100% at least

00:44:08Karen Mendoza

Has anyone contracted with a 3rd party esports company to run their esports leagues or events from start to finish? From registrations to match-making, to community moderating, and in live-broadcasting, doing the live-commentating?

00:44:09Justin Griffin

We've been having participants stream to their own twitch, then using a broadcasting software to put this on the UFRecSports Twitch. Any commentators go through an "interview" process with us to chat about expectations and all that good stuff. Moderating chat is done by our admin staff during streams

00:45:06Shana Kessler

@Justin what broadcasting software do you use?

00:45:45Justin Griffin

https://obsproject.com/

00:45:48Karen Mendoza

How do you recruit and train your staff to run esports programming?

00:46:02Justin Griffin

https://streamlabs.com/ is a good option as well

00:47:44CU - Nick Remple

@Karen I would not recommend that route. Registration and match making should be handled in house. Paying for talent to broadcast/commentate gets incredibly pricy and professional/amatures may be busy with tier 1 events currently going on

00:48:31Crystal Durham - NAU

in the Spring we scheduled matchups in IMLeagues and allowed them to self-schedule during the week. They emailed their final scores to us and I had students input all the scores

00:48:31Dan Kratz

For those who are streaming/running eSports on campus, what is your relationship with IT in regards to eSports?

00:48:42Kevin Wilson

Any issues with 'self scheduling' - defaults and student push back?

00:49:22Crystal Durham - NAU

@Kevin we had some forfeits (one person would reach out about scheduling and not get a response) but they were always able to show via screenshot that they had tried to schedule multiple times

00:49:25Luis Banda

We had been using IMLeagues and doing ladder play throughout they need to challenge at least minimum 7 opponents and try to go up and down the ladder in the 4 week period to try to end up at the top.

00:50:29Jason McIntosh

Jason McIntosh

ggCircuit

jason.mcintosh@ggcircuit.com

Management software, stat tracking, At Home Client, PXE Services & more

00:50:44Jordan Garcia - CSUF

For anyone managing a Discord - are you scheduling/paying staff to moderate or are you utilizing different bots to be auto-moderated?

00:54:44Shaneisha Weir

@jordangarcia I usually watch them but how do you set up an auto bot?

00:54:48CU - Nick Remple

@Jordan, as much as wed like to pay our staff to moderate our 2000 person discord we do not have the means to. At the current moment we have collected some of our most dedicated community members and invited them to moderate the server

00:56:52Jordan Garcia - CSUF

Cool. Thank you for answering!

00:57:13Crystal Durham - NAU

what Darby said lol

00:57:34Jason Darby

You've only got two plans? At least on plan 5 here

00:57:40CU - Nick Remple

Finals maybe.... depends on how things shake out

00:57:45Crystal Durham - NAU

if we do host Esports in person I think we will make it BYOC (bring your own controller)

00:58:13Steven Walton

Would love to play the finals in person. Too focused on the in-person schedule to even think that far ahead though

00:58:25Jason Darby

@Crystal are you providing any for anyone who wants to play but may not own a controller?

00:59:32Crystal Durham - NAU

maybe? we don't currently own any equipment so we will probably have to reach out to our Esports club to get their help in hosting the tournament anyway

01:00:32Jason Darby

We would lean towards BYOC as well but we are also concerned about barriers to participate being an issue and not wanting to exclude anyone IF we play in person at all. We usually use some of my controllers or other staff members who lend them for the event.

01:00:53CU - Nick Remple

CU Gaming runs intramurals, and we have our leadership look through the applications. Students are to provide a proof of enrollment thing that every student is provided at the start of the semester

01:01:12Drew Devore

@darby - smart man

01:01:15Mike Wozniak

We are planning to offer prizes, based on entry fees

01:01:18Crystal Durham - NAU

so lucky - I tried to remove the year on this year's design and was told no lol

01:01:30Jason Darby

I wish I could claim that. I gotta give Crager credit for that one.

01:01:45Mike Wozniak

eGift cards

01:01:45Steven Walton

We are putting in our order for this years champ shirts this week. We'll be giving out IM shirts as prizes for all sports. If they are not on campus we will mail them.

01:02:02Crystal Durham - NAU

we mailed t-shirts to our Spring champions if they weren't still in Flagstaff. I scheduled pickup for anyone still in Flagstaff

01:02:09Luis Banda

Went away from using dated shirts - we are doing curbside pickup by appointment of prizes for those who have won during Spring & Summer

01:02:53Luis Banda

Student emails us a picture and we are doing our wall of champions to post on social media

01:03:03Nikki Vance

We said they will be able to pick up shirts when we reopen.

01:03:15Drew Devore

our Comp sport office will be by appointment only this fall so students will have to set up an appointment to come pick up their prize. IF they are not on campus we will mail them.

01:05:20Kevin Wilson

Meal Plan Money! lol

01:05:51Mike Wozniak

We are, based on entry fees and we award it as Amazon eGift Cards. We need to get special approval for that purchase, but it isn't too hard at our University.

01:05:54CU - Nick Remple

@Kevin Yeah exactly, you can also use it to pay for printing services and in the Bookstore

01:06:43CU - Nick Remple

But I imagine most every student uses it on food

01:08:41Jason Gant

recreationreadiness.org/gaming

01:10:06Jason Darby

MS I know is exploring carrying over in the fall perhaps. I believe doing a Team Trivia option in August.

01:10:22CU - Nick Remple

oh boy

01:10:28CU - Nick Remple

Too many nicks

01:10:49Luis Banda

Several of our students participated in the Region 4 tournament.

01:11:23Nick White

there can only be one

01:11:49CU - Nick Remple

Ill cede my name, My Gamer tag is cooler anyway

01:12:14Nick White

:-)

01:15:14Jason Darby

Get student feedback on what they want to play and make it work

01:15:29Crystal Durham - NAU

I think if you are a smaller school I'd recommend trying to do cross-platform games

01:15:32Shana Kessler

If anyone is looking to discuss esports or virtual programs more after this, feel free to email me at kesslers124@gmail.com

01:15:34Justin Griffin

Build a discord to grow the community/ease communication between participants

01:15:56Steven Walton

Create a survey and send it out to previous participants and incoming students.

01:16:01Shana Kessler

for more power rangers content, follow me on twitter @bangarang_shana

01:16:05Luis Banda

Student feedback - poll groups, send out IMLeagues blasts, polled our student employees on what time of mobile games they are currently playing as well to offer a different platform

01:16:15Jason Darby

Only for Green Ranger content

01:16:31Shana Kessler

if you mean green Zeo ranger then yes

01:17:14Kil Byers, HCC

Do any schools have a prohibition on playing games where there is killing involved?

01:17:26Steven Walton

No FPS games at Creighton

01:17:49Luis Banda

@kil we currently do not allow those types of games

01:20:02Luis Banda

Thank you everyone! lmbanda@southtexascollege if anyone has anything to share

01:20:23Adam Hickle

Thank you!

01:20:24CU - Ian Hales

Thank you!

01:20:26Kil Byers, HCC

thanks for hosting