Recruiting Faculty for Esports Programs in Academia

Background

The eSports spectacle presents myriad opportunities for participation, employment, and profit for those who are properly trained and prepared to take advantage of the opportunity. Reitman, et. al., identifies several domains where new areas of research have surfaced because of eSports. Among these are business, sports science, cognitive science, informatics, media studies, law, and sociology (Reitman, Anderson-Coto, Wu, Lee, & Steinkuehler, 2020). Other domains include technical specialties such as cloud computing, networking, programming, game design, graphic design, and computer hardware design and engineering. With the potential for participation in eSports covering this broad spectrum of knowledge, it is clear that no single student could reasonably expect to be an expert in more than one or a few of the domains involved nor could an individual faculty member be able to support the expanse of knowledge across these many diverse knowledge domains.

Much of the literature around eSports is focused on the growth of this emerging industry and how collegiate programs can expand their current athletic-based sporting into the eSport arena. It is notable that universities are experiencing challenges in determining where to house eSport activities with initial efforts often stemming from club-based groups (Pizzo, Jones, & Funk, 2019). Central to the discussion about how to support eSports on campus is the determination of whether eSport should be considered a sport and thus receive funding, management, promotion, and governance like other sports, or whether it should be classified as a club and be supported via traditional student activities and oversight mechanisms (Funk, Pizzo, & Baker, 2018). Having no clear consensus on the format of eSports in the collegiate environment contributes to the difficulty in devising an eSport curriculum and the determination of the best faculty skills and capabilities to make eSport degree programs successful.

To illustrate the complexity and breadth of domains upon which eSports relies, other than actual game development and computer science, the legal aspects provide a useful example. Because eSport is not geographically based, there is the potential for numerous jurisdictional influences, including local, regional, state, national, and international rules, policies, and laws. A common thread that runs through the discussion of the legal aspects of eSport, like the preceding discussion about collegiate eSports implementation, centers on whether eSport should be considered a sport and be subject to the same rules and oversight as other sports or whether it is something else (Windholz, 2020).