University to invest £275,000 in new esports centre
The University of Warwick has announced that is investing £275,000 in establishing an esports centre.
It will be located at the heart of Warwick campus in the newly named ‘Junction’ facility.
The university says it wants the facility to offer both its campus and local community “more than any other UK esports facility” and is now seeking sponsorship to provide the centre with bespoke coaching, training and development activities that will be accessible to the wider community.
Esports is a competitive team-play environment, watched by millions every single day, with a recent world esports final of League of Legends garnering 3.8 million concurrent viewers.
Clare Green, a Women in Games ambassador and creative and digital communities manager at University of Warwick, said: “The 2020/21 lockdowns saw several sectors like video games and esports expand, seize opportunities and boom amidst the crisis. More people turned to gaming and esports as an alternative to the gym and leisure activities that the pandemic forced to close. Video games allowed people to relax and escape from the daily stresses, managing anxiety levels.
“However, esports was already huge with large-scale national and international events. Esports was already one of the global screen industry’s most innovative and fast-growing areas generating an estimated 1,214 FTEs of total employment and £111.5m in GVA for the UK economy in 2019.”
Yinsu Collins, a University of Warwick graduate and Esports broadcaster, said: “I wished I’d known at university that I could do the things within my career that I do today. There are so many opportunities to do different things within the esports industry; covering everything from playing to media, PR, graphic design, streaming through to writing, presenting, events, sales and marketing.
“The possibilities are endless. It’s narrow-minded to look at esports and just focus on games and players as there are so many well paid jobs – it’s so much more than the games.”
