welcome to the secrets of college planning on your host anthony and today we're going to get some insight into e sports at the college level my guest today is the executive director for the national association of collegiate e sports and welcome to the show michael o go hawks and so can you let's go back into high school before we get into today when did you start thinking about college in the whole college process was a freshman your high school senior high school when did it all begin for you know i would say you know i'm looking probably junior year ice or paying pretty closely now you graduate college how does one be become the executive director of the national association because egypt e sports it's a long process made by many sports so i was half way volunteered half way nominated to help will beat this separate initiative from the n e i its own association and it's just rapidly grown since you start bringing together champions started basically in two thousand and sixteen so almost this is your second year going into feels a lot longer than that but yes yes we're very very new but we're leading the charge there make sure gaming we're talking about having a dedicated e sports arena on campus you have a coach who's an employee of the institution and e sports rector's an employee of the institution these are scholarship individuals they they have uniforms they have weight training you know they have nutrition plans they have practice schedules all the equipment the gaming can quit meant the p c s headsets keyboards those are all provided by the institution they're all typically branded by the  school it's the real thing and the sponsorships and everything that go go along with this as well yeah that's absolutely absolutely and it's different sponsors than what you would typically see at a basketball or football game you know we're talking about intel is a huge sponsor in this space i buy power dx racer and z x t you know names that are in demick to the gaming community but if you're outside of that you're not a gamer maybe you've never heard of these things before but they're big they're big and the fastest growing entertainment space in the world and that's that's the sports right now and so within the next three to five years the do you think all the universities will have it at the college level educated and for the most part has a had a home on campus right there their interests have not aligned with the interests that the administrations have typically put forward and we're discovering that you know how degree a question i was get from athletic directors from vice provost and provost of student affairs and from presidents is how do we ignore this group for so long because it is so large and so diverse and so important to the future of these institutions  such so yes we i guess this is like a wave of jobs coming into the school as well the absolutely absolutely and talking about educating young men and women for the careers of the future that is the sports right we're talking about a streaming right that is the most as a predominant way to distribute content in gaming any sports and is also the largest future trend for marketing in the world right that is how the future content distribution has all the cord cutters we keep hearing about right the the typical traditional cable packaging that's going the way the dinosaurs but if you look at the higher education space very few schools are training people on how to to engineer for streaming services how to use a growth hacking and social media that's that's native to east course though it's to the competition that exists there so by its very nature you are designing and building for a whole slew of supporting industries besides just being a good gamer no w they're rioting in a different games that students applying is it just call of duty and legal legends or is it like a whole bunch of other stuff yeah it's a name to the big ones but there are there are quite a few games  that were helping adult structure around we have partners in the industry as well as they see the potential here to create something that's good that's something that's lasting so the most popular games league of legends is the most popular game in the world right now and that's true in the space then there's overwatch that's a blizzard game title per stone which is another blizzard game title rocket league which is the publisher site onyx there those are the games that are probably the most popular right now sensitivity which i think is somewhat justified as well around wanting to push forward any any realistic you know first person shooters anything that promotes violence you know these are institutions of higher education first and foremost with their own their own missions to advance kind of the next generation there and there are there are questions there and our membership it's split almost half and half between those who think those type of games have a place and collegiate side of things and those who don't know what type of students do you see going into the game per se sports at the college level sure well i think everyone has  ratings on e sports now which is awesome because the more data we have here the more proof that we're showing is that competitive gaming e sports is a unifying characteristic it applies to everyone regardless of what you look like your your racial background your household income background your own personal interest gaming is across the entire board one of the latest studies actually showed if you went to a college campus and just looked at the breakdown by race by gender by democrat any demographic you want it and looked at well who's here on campus the gaming community on campus probably mirrors almost exactly the students there so that means you have athletes you've got you've got the smart guys the engineers you've got the journalism guys you've got the finance guys they're all gaming and usually they're gaining us each other since everyone hides behind a user name so yeah this is the stereotypes are are going away now there are some trends that we do scores and they do tend although it's not a strong correlation but the tennessee is still there to be in stems stem programs so that the hard sciences there that is the data that we're seeing more so than interracial athletics experience on campus and certainly helping with their tension graduation rates as well as the what's the scholarships attached with with these boards and what type of scholarships of the students getting at the college level sure it's equity among the competition issue we're working to towards that but that's why there's such a wide discrepancy in scholarships i'll give you an example most institutions i would say give out partial scholarships  example harrisburg university that's out pennsylvania just launched their first ever competitive program which is east ports which is awesome they're stem school computer sciences they are starting off their program with sixteen full right scholarships there's as we collect more data and share that with the minister administrators on the scholarship outlays month programs we expect some stability to be added or right now with most programs being in the first or second year we're seeing numbers just across the board but they're there and it's again we we count just under nine million scholarships available right now so now how's the format of these sports how does it work at the college level do you  yeah you're because you're playing online you're playing any one of our schools are playing in the resorts arena it'll be their team of as you said five to seven competing against a similar sized team you know five or seven  in another east but somewhere else in the u s so time zones don't really mean anything travel distances don't mean anything and there is no difference yet between the the large institutions  ranked team by the way you know it's that traditional affinity of how strong your program might be it doesn't exist in these sports right now it's it is in that regard the wild west anyone can play against anyone  to help bring in varsity programs to publishers right now who are running their own collegiate competition it's riot for legal legend and blizzard for her stone overwatch and  heroes of the storm which most people of become familiar with years of the storm on e s p n they call it heroes of the dorm so those are the two publishers who are out there they're really organizing and it's our job to help educate our membership on how they engage on that and they are based off the semester model so we're not on the seasonal model fall winter spring yet we hope to get there but right now his first semester sex mets are different games are being played  different semesters which mean different teams are competing as well there's very few players who play more than one game right now and that for the publishers who aren't yet active in the cli space whether because of a resource issue a planning logistics issue or maybe just a lack of interest on their end we will then take on those responsibilities where we can get access to the intellectual property the ip to do it to help run competition a regular season a postseason for our institutions yet teams in those games so so how many torments altogether is it ten forty fifty i would say there's there's probably turns a major tournaments maybe seven in a year over different games and then they win those type of games and then there's a national champion a school becomes a national champion that's right that's right so i'm beating apple university in marysville i think louis last year they won there you know what do you see is the the future of e sports where where is it going e sports i think that's going to continue to grow there's been enough studies so i think there's a there's a group called big data they did a study on the us so males and females aged ten to twenty and asked what are your interests right and east force is the common denominator it's not sports it's not specific sports like football or baseball it's not you know band or music or art or debate or any of those activities that we traditionally think of in the high school or college space it's the sports so when you have that being the common a denominator that being the main interest and the the kind of the r a y right what is the cost are the sports program what do we get out of that as an institution what our students get out of it it is it is a no brainer right it's if you look at adding attritional compared to adding an e sports program the numbers are overwhelmingly in favor of the stores from a cost outlay from a usability outlay that is that is the future i expect every college and university us in the next five years you see the university didn't vary highly into the technology and the bit where everything was is so why fight so then you don't you don't miss a particular step in  those and there are unique issues there so we have some of our schools we've been around since the beginning and they're little bit more well known in the cleeve side and you know some of them have been suffered you know denial of service attacks or people or try keep them from competing those issues do happen they're pretty rare though but yes yes it's going to be pretty normal to see the campus fully engaged on the sports everyone has their own e sports arena which usually has  own their own broadband access where they're running an ally and directing the arena or that program and different academic departments there are flooding in trying to figure out how can we get our students involved sports thing we're seeing journalism communication departments engineering departments computer sciences department just because again this is like introducing a brand new industry it impacts so many of the preexisting infrastructure  that and that and and ways that brands and markers in the future you know in this capitalist society they understand that this is the future and it opens you up immediately into a global market so we're coming to the end of our show ever recruiting platform for students who are interested in playing at toledo level if you go to w w w dot and ac e sports start work you'll see a bunch of information there and a link to create a profile that will then  go into a database where our coaches are use for directors and our members to sions will then be able to look at your profile ill ask you you know what game you're playing what's your rank at that game what positions you want to play what characters you play your academic profile obviously this is higher education you be the best gamer but if you don't have strong grades well we can't do much for you we want make sure you're successful in college right and graduate with a degree so i would say start there that is where all of our members to sions which is again nearly all of our c programs that are out there right now are looking online for recruits the second component i would say if you're really interested in playing it is such an industry in its infancy that people are incredibly open to sharing if you're a student i would encourage you go to our website see what schools are maybe around you with a varsity program visit their websites i think everyone has their contact information readily available reach out these are people with the same passions as you they love gaming they love seeing students succeed reach out that's the best advice i can give you right now there's you have to worry about right now about recruiting rules like the n c a a has like who can reach out to who when can we reach out is none none of that exists right now everyone just want to share what they're doing that hopefully can do a better so please reach out we have an awesome awesome group of the ministry of yours you know coaches and directors who really want to to talk thank you very much for coming