Michigan State’s esports program is among the best in the state of Michigan. Their top teams are consistently competing against others around the country across multiple esports games.
But growing the community in Michigan is just as important, so representatives of the program traveled six hours each way to host a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament at Bothwell Middle School in Marquette, Michigan.
The tournament, held on Oct. 11, was open to middle and high school students. Fifty-four students participated in a day full of esports activities, including a tournament-style bracket, presentations from the MSU esports program, and a Q&A session to learn more about esports opportunities.
“One of the powerful parts of these types of events is that for many of these students, they don't even realize that this is an option," said Christopher Bilski, director of MSU’s esports program. “It's an eye-opening opportunity for most of them, and it's not just the students, but for a lot of the parents that were present as well.”
Bilski said he loved the energy from the students and he heard how much they enjoyed it from their parents.
“I had multiple parents come up and talk to me and say, ‘Please come back and do more of these. My student is loving this experience,’” Bilski said. “Even if they lost right away, they don’t have many opportunities for esports events like that in the Upper Peninsula. Us being able to provide that for them was something everyone really enjoyed.”
The MSU esports program brought a four-person crew to run the tournament. Alongside Bilski was esports content and production coordinator, Jonathan Eaton.
He described the positive attitude players had even when they lost early in the tournament.
“One of the things I found most unique about this specific tournament was everyone staying until the end and cheering for the finals match,” Eaton said. “What you see at a lot of collegiate esports tournaments is that as soon as the team is eliminated, they just go home after. Everyone stayed around, did free play games, and talked to us after.
“We did a show match with two of our players and then we played the finals match. During the show match with our players, the entire room of all the kids were sitting there watching, cheering, and screaming.”
Drew Farrell, a senior on the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team, played in the show match and helped run the tournament. He loved seeing kids with limited esports opportunities be excited about the sport.
“Just to show kids over there that there is a future in video games and esports," Farrell said. “Getting kids passionate about something at an early age helps, and being able to share that there are college opportunities for them.”
Bilski touched on how trips and tournaments like these are a large part of the program with giving back to the community.
“For us, this wasn't as much a recruiting trip for our team as it was really something to help cultivate and grow esports here in Michigan,” Bilski said. “For us, just helping to grow esports in Michigan is one of the foundational goals of our program, and this very much helps us to achieve that goal.”
A common theme in conversation was the potential for esports to expand opportunities for students in the Upper Peninsula's rural communities. For sports like soccer, hockey, basketball and more, travel can be difficult for students and parents. Esports can be played from schools or homes, which can connect people from further away.
“I think esports has a really unique opportunity in the Upper Peninsula,” Bilski said. “Esports is something that these schools can do that’s accessible in a way to them that a lot of other sports are not. If you’re playing other sports in the Upper Peninsula, you have to travel quite a bit to play pretty much anything, but esports can help alleviate some of those issues or costs associated with that.”
Bilski and Eaton mentioned how they plan to travel back to the Upper Peninsula to host more tournaments later this academic year.
“The U.P. doesn't get a lot of opportunities for esports, especially in Marquette with NMU’s (Northern Michigan University) program being closed,” Eaton said. “Just seeing how far people traveled and how excited everyone was to play the game, it was pretty awesome.”