ATHENS, W.Va. — E-Sports is a booming industry, and right at the forefront of that meteoric rise is Concord University.
Concord made history when it became the first public university in West Virginia to create a competitive e-sports program.
Since the program began in 2019, the school has fielded National Championship teams in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024. The Concord Maroon Team captured the 2024 title in the Eastern College Athletic Conference by taking down Brewton-Parker College.
Director of Concord University’s E-Sports team Austin Clay made his case for how strong his team is and gave insight to the program’s forefront game.
“We are one of the probably top 25 teams in the nation, especially in Rocket League,” Clay said on “Talkline” with Hoppy Kercheval. “Rocket League is our forefront game now currently. We are definitely one of the shining stars, especially when it comes to production.”
Rocket League is a competitive video game based around the game of soccer, with an objective of scoring a soccer ball into a goal but doing so with rocket-powered cars.
Concord proves to be a shining star when it comes to production, as the school offers an e-sports major and has an in-person arena open to the public for live matches.
Clay said his original goal was to be a pioneer in developing a program, but now it turned into a competitive and academic-focused vision.
“Our vision to start out was to be one of the first to build a program, and build it from there,” Clay said. “Now our vision it not only to be competitively good but focus heavily into the academic side of our program.”
Clay has worked on that vision by creating the “e-sports management” major at Concord University, and he says the major is very fluid and conforms to the interests of the students.
“We have our own major that I created with the help of our school here, called e-sports management,” Clay said. “What you do in that major is, you work with me, and we create the major to fit your need.”
Clay explained further by saying that students wanting to focus on being a social media manager or graphic designer would take more graphic design and communication course, while those wanting to focus on being an e-sports director like him would need to take more business courses.
Clay also shared his desires for his current and future students to be able to work in the statistically booming industry.
“Right now, e-sports is a $2 billion industry and looking to become a $12 billion industry by 2030, so we want to make sure our students coming through Concord, competing in e-sports, can get a job within that industry, as it’s a rapid-growing industry within the tax sector,” Clay said.
Concord will be hosting a public match against WVU Tech in the fall on the Concord University campus.