An esports debut is on the horizon for a potential spring 2024 launch.
The program would be a varsity program within KSC athletics, with the ability to have development and JV teams, according to Travis Wyant, who has worked on the project for over a year and a half.
“One of the beautiful things about esports … You can have meaningful competition from multiple teams in your program,” he said.
Over the summer, on July 24, a post was made by the KSC athletics social media announcing the esports program and the addition of a varsity Men’s and
Women’s hockey team along with it.
KSC athletics is “leaning towards adding the games Rocket League and Super Smash Bros Ultimate as the “base games” for the program, according to Wyant. Future games depend on student demand. Adding that if there is a want for games like League of Legends, Rainbow Six Siege or other games that have a competitive arm to them they could be added.
esports is the competitive arm of video games, where players will play against each other like any other sports program.
“It’s an opportunity for people who really enjoy video games to play at a competitive level against organized teams,” Wyant explained.
The program is set to be hosted in one of The Living and Learning Commons’ classrooms. The classroom would be renovated to be able to accommodate a space for the program. The space would include around 15 PCs and a yet-to-be-determined amount of Nintendo Switches, he said.
Wyant described the space as going to be “state of the art.”
Competitive matches will be played from Keene State and regular practices will occur like any other sports.
Since esports is not a division sport, the esports teams would be able to schedule themselves to play against any college they want.
“The benefit of esports is you can play from your home base and you don’t have to pay for travel,” Wyant said. “You can play teams from California, you can play teams from Florida, it doesn’t make a difference.”
However, the possibility of travel for tournaments if the teams are strong enough and if the money is in the budget is up in the air. He noted not much talk has surrounded that, but he could see a world where the teams do try to make that happen.
Additionally, the program would be co-ed.
“If you can game – you can game,” he said.
At the student involvement fair hosted on Thursday, Sept. 7 people from the athletics department will be set up to answer any questions students may have and later on, they will be sending out a student questionnaire for students to figure out their interest in different esports titles and other topics related to esports.
Tim Bruns can be contacted at
tbruns@kscequinox.com
