HOLYOKE — The rise of esports over the last decade has illustrated that the gaming world is an industry filled with potential careers that generations prior may have been warned away from due to certain gaming stigmas. This is why Holyoke Community College has officially added an esports team to its athletics offerings for the new academic year.
Short for electronic sports, esports involve participants playing online video games against individuals or other teams. Some of the more common collegiate-level esports are games like “Overwatch” (a multiplayer, first person shooter game), “League of Legends” (a multiplayer online battle arena game) and “Rocket League” (a vehicular soccer game).
“They are strategy games. Thinking person’s game,” said HCC Athletics Director Tom Stewart. “Every athletic event is a thinking person’s game, but these are more strictly thinking person’s games, but they also require a measure of physical coordination and stamina.”
Taking an old classroom space inside the Bartley Athletic Center, Stewart has created a two-in-one locker room and arena for competition that the team will utilize. Inside are 10 esports stations equipped with new high-performance computers, monitors, keyboards, headsets, mice and gaming controllers available for 5-on-5 competition. The room also has a large TV screen on the wall that will allow for the team to review game film during practices.
“They can use it to actually review the game that they just played and put the game up on TV and then discuss strategy as to where they should’ve done this or that,” Stewart said.
Stewart said the addition of the esports team on campus continues his efforts as athletic director to be cutting edge. He added just last year he added six new pickleball courts and a disc golf course to campus.
“I decided to just jump in both feet. We’re the only school west of Worcester that’s a junior college that has it,” Stewart said.
According to Stewart, HCC will be just the fourth community college in Massachusetts to create an esports team, joining Mass Bay, Northern Essex and Bunker Hill community colleges. The HCC team will be coed. Coaching interviews will be starting up in the coming weeks followed by the start of recruiting students for their co-ed esports team.
Students on the team will have to meet the same academic eligibility requirements as athletes on any other team at HCC, as well as nutrition and fitness components. The room will only be accessible to team members and the space will only be utilized in the same ways a gym or the soccer fields fill up for practices and games.
“It’s not a gaming club. This room is not open to the general public so any student can’t come in here and start banging away on the computers. That’s not going to happen,” Stewart explained. “Team members are not going to be able to kick it in here all day long instead of going to class. They’ll have to maintain their grades. It’s just another athletic offering to complement their overall educational experience.”
Although HCC belongs to the National Junior College Athletic Association, the NJCAA, its esports team will compete in the Eastern College Athletic Conference, which has an esports division.
With the new offering through HCC athletics, Stewart added the school hopes to capitalize on the increasing popularity of professional esports, a market expected to exceed $1 billion in revenue in the U.S. in 2024 and growing about 15% annually, according to Statista, an online industry database.
“It’s the biggest growth sport in the country,” Stewart said. “I think it’s going to attract a different kind of kid. When local high schools find out we have an esports team here, I think it’s going to help enrollment.”
Stewart added he was excited about the doors this new program could open for a growing student population of gamers who are competitors like any traditional athlete.
“For me, this opportunity will go to a kid who may not be quote unquote gifted athletically, but is gifted strategically,” Stewart explained. “Chess is the greatest game in the world, no better game in the world strategy wise than chess. This is kind of a chess aspect of it because you’re playing in a field of strategy and that’s the beauty of it all, that it appeals to a different kind of student that’s not a quote unquote traditional athlete, yet they’re athletes.”
