ETSU esports has experienced significant changes since the program was introduced four years ago. This semester, they’re heading into the fall season with fully established teams and schedules.
“A lot of the growth we’re seeing is just us keeping our ears to what the student body is interested in and what they have a desire to see us compete in, and what makes sense within NACE,” said head coach Jeff Shell. “When we added Rocket League, there was a lot of student demand.”
In the early days of ETSU esports, the program consisted of just Overwatch and League of Legends. Due to its popularity, Overwatch stayed and became the longest-running game of the program. The esports program earned a bigger following and grew exponentially after adding Rocket League, a decision made by student body demand.
The program launched the Super Smash Brothers team in spring 2023, where they finished the season just shy of the top 16 nationally in playoffs. This semester, the team will be starting their first official tournament season.
“When we started looking into our journey with Smash and what that would be, a lot of it came back down to the Smash Brothers club on campus being extremely popular. It made sense for us to pursue that and help grow a varsity roster from that,” said Shell.
The Super Smash Brothers team will run year-round, like most other teams in esports programs nationwide.
Weekly schedules this semester begin with Rocket League competitions on Mondays starting Sept. 11. Overwatch will compete on Tuesdays beginning Sept. 5. iRacing will also occur on Tuesdays once a month, kicking off Sept. 19. Finally, the Super Smash Brothers team will battle on Thursdays starting Sept. 7. Full schedules, including opponents, will be released the week of Sept. 4.
All games will take place at 7 p.m., where they can be viewed in the Cave and streamed live on Twitch and YouTube.
