By Wyatt Crosher, Communications Coordinator for Student Affairs
Back in 2013, the idea of esports — or a video game being played competitively by professionals for an audience — was still relatively new.
It was just two years prior to the creation of Twitch, an online streaming platform primarily used by gamers. Twitch immediately grew a viewership in the millions, which helped play a role in the boom of esports in general.
But 2013 was a major year for esports at UNC Charlotte: It was the year that Niner Esports was born. Before it became what it is now — a club that reaches thousands of people and holds events with hundreds of attendees in the Popp Martin Student Union — Niner Esports advisor Kevin Colwell said it was built primarily as a group for the game, “League of Legends.”
“We started out with probably 30 students meeting in a lab in Barnard,” Colwell said. “Nine years later, we have over 2,300 people on our Discord (digital communication platform) server. We have almost 500 people in Niner Engage. We believe that we're the largest club at the University, and the largest esports club on the East Coast.”
Colwell helped found the club, served as its president in 2016 and became an advisor after graduating from the University. Throughout that time, he has seen Niner Esports, and the esports field as a whole, explode in popularity.
Universities are increasingly investing in esports as student interest continues to rise. This is due in part to the recognition that sports club participation is about more than physical activity: student organizations, including sports clubs, foster social connections and communities that support students throughout their collegiate careers.
This type of campus involvement and peer networking have shown a positive impact on students' health and wellbeing. Plus, the expansion of esports is opening new career paths for professional players as well as business opportunities for those involved outside of the games.
“Back in 2013, people were still saying, 'You mean people can get paid to play video games? What does that even mean?'” Colwell said. “In 2021, esports surpassed every major sports league in viewership except for the NFL. The industry has grown tremendously over the past decade, and it's only showing signs of continuing to get bigger and bigger.”
Jorge Sanchez has seen the growth of this first hand. Before taking over as Niner Esports president this semester, Sanchez had experienced a wide variety of areas throughout the field.
"When I was about 5 or 6 years old, my dad bought me a Nintendo GameCube, and that was probably the worst decision he made,” Sanchez said jokingly. “I got obsessed with that. I used to play ‘Pokemon,’ then I got a Game Boy. I've been gaming basically since I can remember."
By the time he was 14, Sanchez joined the competitive side of gaming, playing the shooting game “Call of Duty: Ghosts” in open brackets. Eventually, the age requirement moved up to 18 to compete, so Sanchez moved onto Twitch to stream his gameplay. That led to him working behind the scenes as a stream manager for other professional gaming organizations, then as a video creator. Eventually, he was offered the opportunity to move to Charlotte with the promise of a facility specifically to create content.
Unfortunately the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted those plans. So Sanchez decided to enroll in the University to pursue a computer engineering degree. That is when he discovered Niner Esports, where he started as a player on its “Call of Duty” team.
Moving from professional manager to the collegiate esports environment was a big change for Sanchez.
"This is brand new to me. I'm used to dealing with corporate people who have a lot of money but not a lot of experience, and you have to teach them the ins and outs of how the industry works,” Sanchez said. “It was cool to see that everyone in Niner Esports was passionate about things, and seeing college students so passionate about trying to get into something so young is such a good thing.”
A similar story can be said for Nathaniel Miller-Robbins. A former Niner Esports president and current member of the advisory board, he may not have had as many unique paths in esports, but he had the same love at an early age that ultimately became a career passion.
“As I got through high school and started looking at colleges, I realized that there was a pretty decently-sized collegiate esports club here,” Miller-Robbins said. “I joined the Discord and then eventually got accepted into UNC Charlotte, and I started the ‘Call of Duty’ team for the organization. It's gone from something I was interested in to something I was playing in, and now I'm more on the management side of things.”
But Niner Esports is not just about competition. The club also has a substantial community because of its attention to the casual gamers interested more in having fun than winning tournaments.
"Niner Esports is a very, very fun organization, and in that midst of fun, we happen to have some pretty good teams,” Miller-Robbins said. “The focus and foundation of the club is coming together to play video games.”
The highlight of its work with the community are the Local Area Network (LAN) events done about twice a semester. These events, which take place in Union 340, bring together hundreds of people to play a wide variety of games, with many bringing in their own computers and game systems to play with other members of the community.
Most recently, Niner Esports held a LAN event on Saturday, April 16, which drew over 350 people to the event. The LAN event featured tournaments from seven different esports titles, as well as exhibition matches in three games against schools like North Carolina State and Johnson C Smith University.
These events provide a chance for club members to come together, meet new people, enjoy games with their friends and find their space to belong within the school.
Even now, with a group that has members in the thousands, Niner Esports still has the same goal it always has: play games together and support a thriving student gaming community.
"At Niner Esports, we are very, very adamant about safety and will go out of our way to protect the safety of our students,” Miller-Robbins said, referring to the negativity sometimes associated with competitive gameplay. “Because of that, it's a very friendly space. We are working hard to make sure that Niner Esports is open and safe for everyone, and is a great comfort place to get into esports."
Learn more about Niner Esports here.