In early December, the eSports governance and management class in the sport management master’s program, along with the eSports Management Graduate Certificate was set to host the second annual 8-Bit Bucs Tournament.
“My favorite part about our program is the emphasis on learning-doing-learning. Watching these students go beyond the hypothetical and experience the challenges and joys of running an eSports event has been wonderful,” said Dr. Natalie Smith, the sport management program coordinator.
Students in this class were assigned roles after learning about the different aspects of eSports tournaments and planning. They worked on tasks individually and came together once a week to talk about the progress as a whole and make group decisions for the tournament.
“What we are looking at is trying to organize this tournament and use skills we’ve learned in class to put on something that resembles an official eSports tournament,” said Hunter Gray, the earned/paid media marketing manager and graduate student.
Presented by Ransom Digital, this tournament will be a 1v1 single-elimination game of Rocket League. There will be a maximum of 32 participants, and anyone can sign up to play. The target age range is 18-24, but people as young as 15 can sign up if they want to.
This tournament is able to be played cross-console, so no matter if you have a Nintendo Switch, Play Station 4, or any other gaming console (including PCs), anyone is welcome.
“I am looking forward to taking everything we have learned in class and putting it into a real-world experience. You know it’s going to be awesome for people to get to play in the tournament too,” said Gray. “But for us, it’s really just being able to take these roles we’ve had over the last 12 weeks and putting something real on the table. Something we can show to future places we may want to work, or just to see something like this come together.”
Along with playing, there will be giveaways throughout the tournament including the winner of the tournament getting a $100 Amazon gift card. There will also be prizes given out to online and in-person viewers.
The tournament will begin at 6 p.m., and there will be a watch party in the Cave with the pregame show starting at 5:50 p.m., as well as the ability to watch online at twitch.tv/etsuesports.
