JAKOB LUCAS & EVAN SNIVELY, Specials to The Denisonian—If you follow sports right now, you’re likely in a bit of a funk. Going to stadiums and watching live games just isn’t an option right now, not during this pandemic. Sure, you can watch on TV, and many do, but the numbers are down for sports viewership. That’s just professional sports too, an industry that’s able to pour billions of dollars into COVID-19 safeguards. Your local soccer league, town’s T-ball league, or even Denison’s many varsity teams can’t practice normally as much or play other teams at all. Why would they? It’s dangerous and I’m sure we all know Denison doesn’t have the billions to ensure the safety of everybody, as much as they’d like to.

One sport however, has continued on without a hitch: esports. Most people don’t know too much about it, but it’s a startlingly large industry that was growing faster than ever before the pandemic – which only bolstered its growth.

Many people dismiss esports off-handedly, “it’s not a real sport, you don’t even think or move.” Maybe not for Candy Crush, but games like Overwatch and League of Legends involve a high amount of strategy and specialized knowledge. Take professional Overwatch, the Overwatch League, for instance. Players have coaches and playbooks and designed plays and must worry about things like positioning, field awareness, and strategy – just like a sport like football.

Similarly, to football as well, there’s plenty of levels to esports. There’s the professional level, like Overwatch League, but there’s also Tier 2 – Contenders, and local leagues. There’s even a college Varsity level. These formats remain similar throughout other games too. Kent State, Ohio State, and the University of Akron all have various teams (including Overwatch ones), as do plenty of other colleges and universities.

So why doesn’t Denison? Esports are COVID friendly, they’re pretty intuitive to learn, they’re not too expensive – all you need is a computer and a copy of the game, and we’ve got plenty of local teams to play – and even more since you don’t need to travel (the internet is world wide after all). There isn’t really a reason not to have a team!
How would esports work at Denison? Professional esports teams practice daily. They play constantly to be the best in the world, training to win millions of dollars in championship prize money. They have facilities to practice in and hours of game tape to watch. If you’re not playing at the professional level however, the internet can be your practice field. You’re never short on an opponent to scrimmage against, the world wide web is your oyster!

Anyone can play at this level too. If you come in with no knowledge of the game you can still join, you might even find out you’re really good at it. That applies to any game too, going into Overwatch, we had no clue what was going on. Now, having played for a while, we’re pretty good! Same goes for games like DOTA and League of Legends. Denison could hold practices once or twice a week for their esports teams, and play OSU, Kent, and Akron, since those three universities play each other in tournaments a lot anyway. Though OSU does have an esports arena, you don’t need one to play! Just any indoor space that fits six people, or in a pinch individual dorm rooms will work, players are going to be communicating over headsets anyway.

Many people are interested in esports, and why not give them what they want? The question isn’t, “why have a team?” It’s, “why not?”

Jakob Lucas’ 24 is a a politics and public affairs and communication double major from Waxhaw, NC.

Evan Snively ‘24 is a cinema and modern language double major from Cary, NC.