Driving the Local Esports Economy

Universities are poised to become the center of the local esports economy. It's time to build.

The Story

If you’re like me, your life has been defined by constant change. Growing up, I moved all the time. In the first 10 years of my marriage, we moved 7 times. It’s not something I enjoy doing. In fact, I crave some sense of stability, but the world we live in isn’t keen on providing that. The ability of brands to let employees go with no warning, and the ever-changing technology that makes jobs shift constantly means that there is no real sense of stability or security anymore. With such a shift to the online realm, it also means that jobs are increasingly abstract as well. With the advent of Web3, blockchain, and new protocol networks, everything we do could be vastly different year to year. With the volatility that esports has seen, is it possible to again create some semblance of economic stability?

Historically, the stability of an economy came from the strength and structure of each regional ecosystem. If you didn’t build the local community, then there was no support to add to the regional or national structure; whether socially, politically, or economically. As the saying goes, “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Economics works the same way. If your local ‘chains’ aren’t strong, the entire chain will break. With all of the moves I’ve made, I’ve lived in 11 different cities/towns across 5 states. One thing I’ve picked up on is what makes a place thrive….and that’s entirely dependent on whether or not it can build it’s economic structures. Some places do an incredible job. Fayetteville, AR for example is a fantastic place to live. The local community has bought into making the city a thriving ecosystem. They participate in civic duty, they take care of their parks, and they invest in the people. Can you have a thriving online community?

Absolutely.

Is esports an online only community?

No.

And that’s where a majority of esports teams and professional organizations miss the mark. The collegiate esports ecosystem has a unique niche. Universities are often embedded into communities, and if not, they should be. Your esports teams at those institutions can access an incredible wealth of community resources from various departments. Add that to your own mix, and there’s no telling the impact you can have.

The Esports Connection

At one of the previous universities I worked at, we had a group of individuals tasked with revitalizing the business environment across the town. We wanted to create deeper connections, had the student workforce with knowledge to help businesses, and provided shared access to all of our networks. In effect, raising the tides for all was a huge success. You may have heard me talk about sharing resources instead of hoarding within esports. Its been traditionally siloed as an industry. And, yes, I realize I said traditionally as if its been around for eons, but nonetheless, with all the speculating and corporate espionage, esports has held tightly to its information; so much so that brands won’t even share marketing assets for joint ventures.

It’s kind of ridiculous. If we’re going to build a stabilized esports infrastructure for the nation, we have to share resources. The infrastructure will be shared, so its only natural that we share the work of building it. The best part? It doesn’t have to be some giant initiative. In your local community, start small. In fact, we need to build the small things before we can build the larger infrastructure. The national infrastructure is only as good as each link in the local chain, and very few strong links have thus far been created. Because universities and educational institutions share deep connections to the surrounding cities and towns, there’s a natural progression that building the local esports ecosystem can take.

Want to work on building your local esports ecosystem? Here’s where to start: