Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Students Get Their Game Face On With Competitive Esports
Description
It is a competitive sport that is taking off around the world with talk of being added to the 2024 Olympic games. We are talking about eSports, competitive video gaming that has high school students across Jordan School District signing up to take on teams from all over the State.
On this episode of the Supercast, find out how eSports is taking video gaming to a new level with competitive gameplay, challenging young minds and improving their mental, visual and physical coordination. eSports is even bringing students together in a community where they may find new careers.
Audio Transcription
Anthony Godfrey:
On this episode of the Supercast, find out how eSports is taking video gaming to a new level with competitive game play, challenging young minds and improving their mental, visual and physical coordination. E-sports is even bringing students together in a community where they may find new careers.
Let's start by talking to a competitive gamer and his coach. We are here at JATC North to talk about eSports. They have one of the premier eSports teams here in Jordan District. And we're here with a Dithea ,who is on the team and Amber Saffen, who is the coach for the team. The team just started this year and they're going to teach me all about it. Thanks for spending time with me today, guys.
Student:
Oh, thank you. Happy to be here.
Anthony Godfrey:
Alright. Tell me the description of what eSports is for those who are listening at home. And they just sat down their controller. They stopped playing Defender and Qbert, and now they want to know about eSports.
Student:
Alright. So basically for everyone that doesn't know about eSports, eSports is basically just any video game that is played competitively to the level where it's kind of a professional match. Most of you guys know traditional sports, like soccer, football, baseball, that everyone has small leagues. They play in Little Leagues, etc., but eSports is just like that, but with video games. So there are the professional leagues where like the NBA, NFL, for like specific sports. So each different video game is a different sport. So League of Legends, that's a type of different sport than Overwatch. Those are like different sports.
Anthony Godfrey:
So within Overwatch and League of Legends, there are different levels of play. Is that right?
Student:
That's completely correct. So basically, in the each game there are different rankings and different levels of play. The higher up you go, the more professional you are, just like that in any other sport. The higher and the better you are, the higher the leagues you'll be playing in.
Anthony Godfrey:
Alright. Coach Saffen, what level would we be competing in an eSport at the high school level?
Coach:
So just like you said, there are the different individual games with their individual rankings. Those rankings for an eSport player help determine your eligibility for those more professional leagues. The nice thing about having a District eSports team is that they can get that experience competing, but they're not restricted to that eligibility by ranking. We can have students who have never played a game before, or haven't built up that ranking and they can come and join the team. And we compete on a State level or a Regional level, depending on the eSport, depending on the game, and then those players want to continue to the professional league. Those would be based off their individual game rankings.
Anthony Godfrey:
So you can compete at the high school level without being ranked beyond that you have to be ranked. Is that correct?
Coach:
Yeah. So to compete at the professional level, the rankings do determine your eligibility.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. So how does this ranking happen? It's probably not like when I used t