Marion Tech unveils new Esports Arena for first school team sport: gaming

A new skyrocketing trend in competitive sports might be a surprising one for some: video games.

Marion Tech leaders are embracing the upcoming sport as they proudly unveiled their new Esports Arena in a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday sponsored by Marion-based Pillar Credit Union.

Esports, short for electronic sports, is competitive video gaming. Esports competitions have been encroaching traditional sports for views in recent years, and in 2018 the video game, League of Legends, had more views during its World Championship finals than the year’s Super Bowl.

The Esports industry was valued at over $1 billion for the first time this year, making it one of the fastest-growing sports.

Marion Tech is one of only 175 colleges and universities in the country to have an officially recognized Esports team as a part of the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE). The program is MTC's first and only team sport, and the school has been investing significant time, finances and creativity to launch the team into success.

This has included partnering with Pillar to launch the Esports Arena, fully equipped with gaming chairs and hiring Sam Moore as Esports Team Coordinator in August 2021.

Equipped with a dedication for students and a deep love for gaming, Moore, who competed in Super Smash Bros. competitions throughout college at Taylor University and went on to help with Esports competitions and events on a freelance basis after, is building his team of gamers to be diverse and inclusive, an advantage Esports competitions have over traditional sports, he explained.

"A lot of people wouldn't be able to compete in traditional sports. Esports gives room for that, giving a voice to people who don't have a voice," Moore said. "I am a pretty big feminist advocate, and I think it gives women a space they wouldn't have otherwise. You don't have to deal with a lot of traditional gender barriers that you find in traditional sports."

This reality has made Esports gaming a far cry from the common stereotype of teens logging on to play after the school day.

MTC's release of the event cites the statistic that 76 percent of American children and two of three American adults play video games, and this figure increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The average video gamer is 31 years old, and nearly half of the video gamers are female.

The investments MTC and Pillar Credit Union are making toward the program are surely not in vain. The inclusivity and support participating students have received have made Marion Tech's Esports team quite the dedicated one.

Team members made personal sacrifices just to attend Thursday's ribbon cutting event, including giving up hours of sleep after working third shift to attend the morning celebration or calling off work in order to support the Esports program.

One Esports team member, Christopher Blankenship, who is in his second year at MTC studying advertising and his first with the Esports team, gave credit to Moore's support for the development and success of the team and its students.

"Sam is an absolutely fantastic director, coach and leader, and I'm super grateful for him," Blankenship said.

"We are not a rich school. We are a school that is catered toward people who may not be at a traditional school, who may not have the money for a traditional school, but it means budget-wise we are a little lower than a lot of other Esports programs. Pillar helps a ton with that. Pillar helps meet some of that gap," Moore said.

Pillar, a Marion-based credit union that now serves five counties in total, earmarks money each year to be invested into community causes and projects, according to Pillar's Marketing Manager, Daniel Bradshaw.

"It's that kind of focus on community that really makes me proud to work at Pillar," he said.

The credit union chooses organizations in which it invests that work to better Marion, in order to directly put money back into the community it's serving. Funding MTC's Esports Arena is a perfect example of this community investment.

"That's the kind of stuff we want to get behind. With it being a positive and also being tied to education and young adults, we know that we want them to stay here and recognize how great our community is," Bradshaw said.

For Christine Gibson, Pillar's Chief Financial Officer of three years, although she has been closely affiliated with the project, she got to see its impact on Marion's youth in a more personal way when her son learned of the Esports program separately from his mom's work.

"I don't know if he toured it with his school or what, but he just came home and he's like, 'Marion Tech's got this Esports thing!' He was just so excited about it, he said, 'Maybe I'll go to Marion Tech,'" Gibson said. "It really seemed that he was really pumped up about it, and he is right at that age, just starting his high school. I think there's a lot of kids his age where this could really make a difference for them."

The Pillar CFO attended Marion Tech for filling in business classes that transferred toward her degree at Franklin University. Her husband also went to MTC and now works in computer programming. This is the legacy the school has had on her life personally, making her proud to represent Pillar in this partnership.

"For us, we've grown within this community, and this community has played a huge part in our growth. It feels really good to get to give back to the same community that helped us get to where we are. When you get bigger, you don't want to forget you didn't do it alone," Gibson said.

Financial partnerships and ribbon cuttings aside, Blankenship gives a reminder that the core of Esports is much more than the competition and investment. It's having fun.

"If you're getting into Esports, just make sure you're having fun. The more fun you have playing Esports, the better you're going to perform and the better experience you're going to have. Video games are so much fun. As Sam said, it's an all-inclusive, all-encompassing sport. No matter who you are, no matter your race, religion, size, gender, whatever, you can always play a video game and have a great time," he said.

Story by: Sophia Veneziano (740) 564 - 5243 | sveneziano@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Marion Tech unveils new Esports Arena