Episode 16: David Kirk, director of ISU Redbird esports
Rachel Kobus 0:09
Welcome to Redbird Buzz. I'm Rachel Kobus with Alumni Engagement. Today's episode is giving our listeners a chance to learn more about the billion dollar industry of eSports and how Illinois State University's Redbird eSports has become one of the top ranked programs in the nation. We will hear from ISU Redbird eSports Director and 2016 alum David Kirk, as he shares more about the new eSports facilities on campus, accomplishments of Redbird eSports, and where it is headed.
We are very excited to be sitting here in the new Redbird eSports facility with Redbird alum and director of ISU eSports David Kirk. So David, what's the word Redbird? For someone who's never experienced Collegiate Esports Can you give us a summary of where it started to where it is today?
David Kirk 0:59
So an interesting fact is eSports actually started in 1972, at Stanford University where a game that was created there called Space Wars was played interesting. In 1980, Atari held a worldwide competition for the game Space Invaders which many of the listeners may have heard of--standard arcade game. And but Collegiate Esports and eSports, in general of what we see today is a lot different than it was back then. It's a billion dollar industry and has grown significantly, particularly in the last five to six years. Collegiate Esports and in what we experience today, and really where ISU is trying to model began in 2014. Some people say it began earlier than that, because colleges have had clubs competing on behalf of them for several years dating all the way back to the early 2000s. However, real investment in Collegiate Esports didn't really occur until that 2014 mark. So in 2014, Robert Morris University became the first university in the entire United States to officially support eSports by providing scholarships. So, you know, that was something the world was familiar with, with traditional athletics, bringing in the top players to represent your institution in intercollegiate competition. The year after that a game publisher Riot Games who is popular for League of Legends, they actually hosted a collegiate world or a collegiate national championship for colleges to compete in, and at the time, many were still clubs, but they hosted a pretty significant prize pool in the hundreds of 1000s of dollars. So that really catapulted other universities to want to start investing. So fast forward all the way to 2020. ISU decided that they were going to officially launch a Collegiate Esports program became the first public state university in the state of Illinois to officially support via scholarships and some other metrics. And then since then, we've had some mild success, which we'll talk about a little bit later. Well,
Rachel Kobus 3:06
and that's why we're here. I was gonna say that's how -- if you want to explain a little more, let's talk about how ISU fits into the world of collegiate sports. Now, what does that mean for Illinois State?
David Kirk 3:14
Yeah, so we are really considered to be one of the top Collegiate Esports programs not just in the state of Illinois, but in the entire United States. We currently support three game titles at a varsity level and for us varsity means we provide some level of scholarship support. We provide dedicated space facilities for them to practice and compete in, we provide dedicated coaching, and we provide additional resources like academic support and overall wellness support. Those game titles are League of Legends, of course, because it's been around since 2014. They're still heavily invested in the development of competitive Collegiate Esports Overwatch, which is a game that is published by Activision Blizzard. And they have a variety of other game titles, like World of Warcraft, many may be familiar with and Call of Duty. Yes, and then Rocket League, which is the easiest game for most folks to understand because it's essentially car soccer. Those those three titles if you were to liken them to traditional sports, we would say that League of Legends is similar in popularity to college football, just because it's been around the longest it's most solidified; Overwatch would be your collegiate basketball equivalent. Again, it's been around pretty much the second longest and it has been the most solidified has the most universities invested. And then Rocket League would be whatever your third most popular collegiate sport title is, whether that's college softball, college baseball, gymnastic. I know that the jury's still out on that one, but we definitively know that football and basketball are the top two. Just like we definitively know that at least at this point, Overwatch and League of Legends are the top two. So we compete in those three and then we have a variety of other game titles that we compete in just not at an official level.
Rachel Kobus 5:03
I mean, it's funny, I have to chuckle because Rocket League, when you say is the easiest one, it's like that's the one I actually have played before. So thank you for making me feel like some sort of gamer during this. And I know a lot of our listeners are listening to this because eSports is so new and we're getting used to learning more about it. It's becoming as well known as like you said, any other athletic sport and that also means we have varsity teams, like you said, those players have to try out for the teams. So you talked about the resources, but how do you get on to a varsity team at ISU and has become competitive now since ISU has risen to the top?
David Kirk 5:36
So, yes, our trial process has changed pretty significantly since we've launched in 2020. When we launched in 2020, the ISU Redbird eSports brand, really had no weight behind it and the Collegiate Esports ecosystem, so it was difficult for us to recruit top level players. Since then, we've won several national tournaments, including several national championships. So a lot of those players are already familiar with the name and they're reaching out to us. One of the really great things about eSports compared to traditional athletics is we have leaderboards for most games that show us where a player falls not just regionally but worldwide, compared to other players. So that allows us a really easy way to recruit top level players by reaching out to them individually, or connecting in different tournaments that they may be a part of, or just directly messaging their team managers. The hard part for us is determining who is college eligible, who has aspirations and want to go to get an education beyond just being a professional player. But those are individual conversations that myself or our dedicated head coaches have with the students. From there, we invite folks to closed tryouts. And we have minimum requirements in terms of rank that they have to be. So it would be similar to Alabama saying, Alabama football saying sorry, we're only going to try out five star football players, which we have the ability to do that. Because our teams are so small, often they're there five to six players. And we really get 20 to 35 stars that want to try out. So we limit it just so that we're you know, we want to be realistic to the students. We don't want to have them try out and then have a bad experience because we do have other opportunities available for them to still come to Illinois State and compete and play and connect with student gamers on campus. Right.
Rachel Kobus 7:28
And so once the teams are created, can you talk about again, just like any other team, there's practices, there's competitions, how does a team at the varsity level prepare to compete?
David Kirk 7:40
Yeah, so very similar to traditional athletics, we have dedicated practice times, we've capped it at anywhere from 10 to 15 hours a week, depending on the number of matches or competitions we have. Unlike football, where you might play once a week, we could play up to three times in an actual competitive league match per week. Those matches can range anywhere from one hour to three hours as well. We're pretty fortunate that our teams are some of the top competitive teams in North America, not even just Collegiate Esports, but all of North American eSports. So our matches normally go pretty quickly. So that allows us additional practice time within that 15 hour allotment to factor in things like study tables. We do factor in nutrition and wellness and dedicated workout times really, each player is required. Yes, yeah, each player is required two hours of physical fitness activity per week. We've partnered with different places on campus, like our Campus Recreation Center, to work with our personal trainers and fitness program to ensure that our players are getting that because we don't have, you know, dedicated strength and conditioning coaches yet. So we leverage our campus resources. And then we have video review. We have scrimmages. That's pretty much the entirety of our practice schedule is scrimmaging other teams, whether they be collegiate semi professional amateur teams, so that we can get practice implementing different strategies and concepts.
Rachel Kobus 9:01
Very cool. And then so I know we only have three varsity level teams, but you did talk about there's other opportunities for students at Illinois State to get involved in eSports. So we're going to dive a little bit more into the facilities itself. But first, can we talk about how can students if they can't make it onto a varsity level team? What else can they do in Redbird Esports?
David Kirk 9:20
Yeah, so we've built the program on what I've defined as the four pillars. So these four pillars all have they start with the C to make it easy for everyone to remember. So we just talked about our first pillar, which is competitive, so competitive, they are varsity players, they get program support, they travel, they're the ones that represent Illinois State University, the brand, in intercollegiate competition, and they're only in those three game titles. Our second pillar is club. So we recognize that even amongst our competitive esport titles, we still have gamers who might play Overwatch or Rocket League or League of Legends, but they're not quite there yet, right? But they still want to compete. So the great thing about Collegiate Esports right now is there is no NCAA, the great and the bad thing about eSports is there's no NCAA, but there's a variety of different tournaments that students can participate in. So we may have our main team or varsity team playing in, you know, the National Championship tournament. Whereas we'll have our clubs represent us in smaller, whether they be weekend or even an entire semester long tournament that is more adequate and more closely ranked to their skill level. We do look at our clubs as kind of a developmental pathway so that you can come in and you can hopefully attain a rank level that allows you to be able to try out to participate in our varsity teams. We have currently at that club level 15 unique registered student organizations that fall under our brand. We call that brand Redbird Gaming for the alumni or for the folks who are listening who understand what a sport club is. Things like rugby, field hockey, lacrosse, here at ISU Ultimate Frisbee here at ISU, Redbird Gaming is really our equivalent to sport clubs. So it does provide an opportunity for students to compete, but also just an opportunity for them to connect and socialize. So we've got 15 to 17. It's always fluctuating dedicated clubs around a different game titles. And of that we have 1200 plus students who are participating in that [that's amazing] started at 60 and 2020 to 60 students total across one club. And we've grown to again 15 to 17, with over 1200 plus two [amazing great to hear]. Our third C is casual gaming. So the facility that we're in right now has 60 dedicated PCs, and it's open to any student, free of charge, they're able to come in, we've removed all barriers, we have game titles already installed, we've got all the peripherals, controllers, headsets, anything that they would need to just come from class, sit down and play. This space is really meant to get students out of their dorm room and into a common space so that they can start building community to start contributing to that social capital of the campus. Makes sense. And then our fourth pillar and way that students can get involved is career. So we recognize that esports is not just about being a player or being a coach, there is an entire billion dollar industry surrounding it. So things from broadcast and production from technology, digital developments and coding. We've got social media and marketing, and then event management are all things that we try to get students experience in so that they have that leg up on the competition, if they go out into the real world, and they decide that they want to get involved in that billion dollar industry.
Rachel Kobus 12:40
That's amazing. And that kind of leads into something else I was thinking of is I've seen I know from ISU, some of our alums have moved on into the eSports industry. So can you think of anything significant you'd like to touch on that when it comes to this is, again, like you said, David started in 2020, I believe. And just in two, two and a half years, we've seen a lot new graduates go out into the field, we've seen the program grow. So what's something that inspired you as a new graduate that maybe went into the eSports industry? Maybe as a gamer, as a broadcaster? What does that feel like? Or do you know of any specific stories you'd like to share?
David Kirk 13:15
So I'll touch on why I chose to go into the industry. And we'll talk about some of the success that our alumni have had. Or some of our Redbirds have had. I have always been a gamer. It dates back all the way from when I was a kid, I used that as a social connection opportunity with my friends. I had a rough go when I got to college, when it comes to gaming, and I struggled academically because I was focusing all my time and attention on that game. And one of the things that I realized is I was in my dorm room alone, I wasn't making any new friends. And it's because we didn't have a program like this to help teach students how to be healthy gamers, how to get them out of the dorm rooms and get connected with other students on campus who share that same passion. Yeah, so from that spawned my my eagerness to want to go into collegiate athletics. And around the time I was doing my master's degree here at Illinois State University. I did my research over eSports in higher education, and that's when Collegiate Esports started booming. You know, Robert Morris had just announced scholarships for League of Legends player, Maryville University, they started announcing scholarships and full ride scholarships at that so and then game publishers, they started investing more dollars into higher quality tournaments and into more resources to help develop both the high school and the collegiate ecosystem. So I saw that as an opportunity. I knew that I had done the research, I thought that it could succeed coming from a Campus Recreation background. And so I wanted to dive in and luckily I've had some success at the University of Akron, where I was before and then I was fortunate enough to be able to come back home to ISU to help grow this program. In terms of notable alumni who have gone on so we've had players who have gone on to the professional leagues amazing not know that At this point, we've had two players from our League of Legends team move up to the professional league of legends circuit. And then we've had now seven players from our Overwatch team that have moved up to the professional circuit, including one who's moved on to coach a professional team out, so not just a player. In addition to that, we've had three alumni in the last three years who have graduated, and now they've gone on and they're leading other collegiate esport programs, very one right over at Wesleyan. So we're excited. It seems like we're having success and doing the mission that we put forward, which is providing those students opportunities to be able to go out and contribute in the real world.
Rachel Kobus 15:39
It's nice to hear, I mean, we want Redbird Esports to continue to be one of the number one ranking eSports in the industry, but to have Redbirds helping others continue to move forward in the industry too, that's that's amazing to hear. And again, it's this short amount of time, David himself is an amazing alum, because like you said, I know you started at Akron, You did amazing things for them. And now look at Illinois State University and what you're doing and what you're going to continue to do, which part of that you already mentioned, it's finding a way for our students to have that healthy gaming environment. And with that, I think we can talk about now where we're sitting in the new eSports facility at Illinois State University that recently opened just this past fall. David and his staff have put a lot of heart and soul into this amazing space. And if you're listening, make sure that you watch some of the video that's being taken as well, too, because this space is truly amazing. Read our stories about it. But David, can you talk a bit about where we're sitting at now and what it took to make the Redbird eSports facility become a true dream come true, basically.
David Kirk 16:40
Absolutely. So for those of you who might not be aware, we started in what essentially was a renovated racquetball court. Over in the Student Fitness Center here on campus, we had 25 PCs in that space. They were high performing PCs, we had the monitors, we had everything needed. But we launched the program with three varsity teams and 21 varsity players. And we always had the goal of those four pillars and to provide all students at ISU the opportunity to be able to engage and interact with the equipment and in the computers to start building that that campus community, we recognize that the Vault was not going to be able to do that. We opened that space and hand kept it offline primarily just for our varsity players to be able to compete and practice. And we were already maxed out using 21 of those 25 PCs. We later started to partner with the game design program here on campus. And we brought them into the space and allowed them to utilize that for different classes that they were teaching, which became a really great partnership to be able to get feedback directly from our players who were in there to the folks who were creating those games. After the first year, we had grown the program from I'd mentioned it earlier, 60 students participating roughly across one title or one one brand, they were participating in a number of titles, but it wasn't centralized. It wasn't organized. From January of 2020, until January of 2021. We grew to over 800 students across at that point, we had a bit more titles, we had 21. But we had various people not actually participating in some of the clubs. So we started to trim that down as we started to become a little bit more specified. And then over the next two years, we grew up to 1200 students across those 15 to 17 andn the university saw that as an incredible amount of student engagement. Yeah, of course, we added a metric onto the admissions application, which allowed students to self-designate their interest in eSports, which became its own designator and its own tag. And we had over 4000 students in the first two years that we had launched that mark that and of that 2500 students actually enrolled into the institution. So we've stayed pretty consistent with a level of engagement hitting around eight-ish percent of the campus population. And that was with a facility that only had 25 PCs. We really leveraged online community building to be able to stay connected to those students. So this facility, which opened officially on October 17, this last year in the first semester, which was 10/17 to 12/17. So two months Exactly. We saw over 6500 students come through, of that 1200 unique students help so plenty of times where this space with 60 PCs, the highest performing PCs you can have was at capacity. So we're already trying to think about expansion, where we're gonna go how we continue to engage the students that we know want to be able to utilize the space. The space is also capable of hosting major competitions. We are in conversation with the IHSA to bring their official state Esports tournament to campus this spring. Um, they're they're looking at some other venues, but we are the most advanced and capable space, at least in Illinois. So we're excited about that we're able to leverage the space for major publisher competitions, national competitions, or even potential professional competitions as well.
Okay. So can you talk just because so maybe the interviewer doesn't know too much about gaming, so and trying to describe so looking around, we have two rooms in the back of the facility that are glassed off. So what will those be used for versus this open area, like you said, has I'm assuming these are the 60 consoles that any student can come into? And I believe before we start our interview, you talked about there's a broadcasting space in one area as well, can you touch a little more on some of the areas that students have access to?
Yeah, so we made the space to be multipurpose and multifunctional, what we knew we wanted was we wanted a space that was welcoming and inviting to any student to just come down, sit down, play with minimal barriers, because that's how they're gonna get more connected to the program, whether it be through our clubs or other things that we're putting on. So that's what this this central area is for the 60 PCs that are in the center, we've got a scoreboard, which is a four sided screen within this space as well, which allows us to broad broadcast out varsity competitions, we may be streaming, we may have announcements, or maybe something else going on, but we can put those with no sound. So it's not disruptive, so that the students can see what we're doing while they're in this space. The two glassed-in spaces that you spoke about, those are what we call our varsity rooms, and in each one of those are connected to another dedicated room, which is very similar to a traditional conference room that we call team rooms. So together, they are only accessible by our varsity players. So they become dedicated varsity space additional varsity space, so they still feel that value of being able to play on the main field. But it also allows the the co-mingling of Varsity players and club players so that our club players can come in and see or casual students can come in and see the top players in North America competing and what it is they're doing to be successful. The setup in those rooms, pretty much mirrors a professional eSports setup, where you've got screens on the front with webcams connected. So you can see player views, you can put digital signage on there, you can also just see player webcams, if you want to see who's behind the screen, that's a great, that's a great resource when we're looking to host things like summer camps, or high school competitions. Yeah, the other great thing about this space to set it up for an event is every one of these pods in here, they're actually daisy chained together, and we can move them out by unplugging one cable. So we can clear out this entire space and just have those two varsity showcase spaces available. So that we have that traditional feel. And we can bring in extended seating. every screen in this space is connected and controllable by the broadcast room. So that broadcast room is really what's going to allow us to start tapping into that fourth pillar, that career pillar, because we can start getting students in there and we can start giving them real world experience with with cameras with audio mixers, you name it anything that a traditional news broadcast or sports broadcast. The same thing applies for traditional eSports. We even have color casters and play by play cast. Yes,
Rachel Kobus 23:12
I love it. And what a amazing opportunity. And like you said, and I hope and I'm going to ask this question to can an alum come and get a tour of the facility that if they're interested just because I want to invite people to come see what eSports has become because this room is amazing. And the fact that you've made it multipurpose and you've made it so inviting. I don't know, it's just one of I think the best thing is on campus right now to come see if I going to be a little biased. So is that a possibility for people to stop by and see what's happening?
David Kirk 23:40
Absolutely. So we're for those who may be alums, they may remember the old bowling and billiards center. So we're located in that, what used to be just an open activity room. So the space was underutilized. And we found a way to utilize it and turn it into one of the top facilities in the country. We have students who work in our space, who supervise the space who provide tours. So it's open from 12pm until midnight, Monday through Sunday. So during any of those times, they're welcome to walk in and just ask for a tour and our students, whether they be at the front desk myself, if I'm here, I'm happy to connect and meet with them. Also, our alumni and community members also can get access to this space as well if they wanted to come in and game. But that access comes at an additional cost. The only folks who have free access are our students., but
Rachel Kobus 24:27
that is meant for them. Yeah, no, that's great to know. Thank you for sharing that with us. So let's talk about in your two years and maybe in just ISU esport time, what have you seen as the biggest achievement whether you think it's the facility? Is it a specific title from one of your varsity teams? What do you believe is she has achieved the best so far.
David Kirk 24:48
So I think we have a number of achievements. And I think it depends on which pillar we're talking about about which achievement we're talking about. [All the achievements are great] What like I had mentioned earlier So I won't go into we've won national championships, which has really put Illinois State on the map. But I think our biggest achievement is Illinois State University, at least for that younger generation that's coming up that's getting ready to look at colleges, all around the country. They know who Illinois State is now, I grew up watching and playing traditional sports. You know, while I played games, I was very much a traditional sports buff. And when I was getting ready to go into college, you know, and I came from Indiana, so I knew Indiana University, Purdue University, UofI, Michigan, I knew USC, I knew University, Florida, Texas, you know, all these big names that are in traditional sports. But even though I was only four hours away, I wasn't familiar with Illinois State, right, because you know, my mind, I'm not seeing them on the big stage of traditional sports. That's not the case for esports. Like we are winning national championships, so that we constantly get outreach from students who aren't even eligible for our varsity team, they just want to come to Illinois State from places like California, Florida, all across the country, Illinois State has become more of a household name. And not just nationally. The great thing about eSports is it has a huge international population. So I have several players on my team right now that come from overseas, we actually just recruited and brought in a player that came from Ireland, we have a player going pro, who we brought in from Turkey, and then Asia and a number of other countries outside of the United States. We have people consistently asking, you know, how they can get involved and how they can get here. So I know that, you know, one of the priorities for Illinois State is international recruitment and eSports has given Illinois State a name outside of academics and some of the other things that we're already great at, and have given us that national reputation. So I would say that's my my biggest achievement because as a Redbird alum myself, I wanted to make sure that Illinois State continues to be a household name. And that gets more exposure.
Rachel Kobus 26:53
I think that's a really, really great achievement to mention. So and I'm going to mention more. You've hired more coaches, and you've hosted expos, you've hosted tournaments, you have done so much as a Redbird as a Redbird alum as the director, you've expanded this program. So what's next? What would you like to see in the future? Is there opportunities for new varsity teams is there up and coming you know, something in eSports ISU needs to be a part of. I know you mentioned obviously continuing to expand and finding ways to host more students and host more tournaments. But what is next for Redbird Esports?
David Kirk 27:28
So more teams are absolutely on the horizon. There are more games that are you know, we really look at a few things, one, other universities competing game titles, developer support, since we don't have an NCAA, and then we also look at student interest. And there are a few game titles that check all those marks. So we're starting to look at adding those in the future, I'm not going to announce what they are now, because those can change at any time. I don't want to eat my words. So that's one of the things I think what this new facility allows us to do as well is it really allows us to start honing in and advancing the two C's that we've not been really able to do to this point. And that's casual gamers and career. So a major focus for us is to start building out partnerships with other academic departments, as well as local, regional, and even national corporations to start connecting our students to them through the experiences that they're getting here. You know, where we're at 1200 plus students that are engaging with us on campus already, I think we can easily get to 15 to 20% of the entire student population. Our issue is going to be finding a place to be able to bring them in because we're gonna capacity if we get there
Rachel Kobus 28:38
Yeah, well, very cool. So before we wrap up, and I asked my last question, is there anything else that you think is important for listeners for viewers to know about Redbird Esports?
David Kirk 28:50
I think one of the things that if they even Google Collegiate Esports, or eSports, in general, normally that word is associated with competitive so they could take anything away from here. Sure, we do have one of the most competitive teams in all of North America from the varsity level. But we're so much more than that. I've already mentioned those numbers. We've got 21 players who we recruit and bring in on scholarship, but we have 1200 plus students who engage with our program. You know, that's what 98% Of the students that were engaging at the university come from those club levels. So we're a lot different than other programs that you may see around the country, because we're not just focusing on competitive or we're not just focusing on club, or we're not just building out a computer lab for students to come sit down and play. We're intentionally programming to try to connect students and provide them opportunities to go out into the real world and be Redbird alums in all these different areas.
Rachel Kobus 29:44
and you're doing an amazing job. So can you tell us what's the best way and this is my last question for you. What's the best way to either watch any of our varsity level teams or hear more about Redbird Esports? How do you want to make sure our listeners can stay connected?
David Kirk 29:57
So we're with our new broadcast space, in terms of watching, we're building out various streaming opportunities on all the traditional platforms that they're probably already used to. We're going to be going live on Facebook Live, will be going live on Tiktok will be going live on YouTube, and we'll be going live on our main channel, which is twitch.tv. So, most eSports competitions most gaming in general happens on twitch.tv. So that'll primarily be where we are, but we're planning is to be able to multicast and multi stream on all the different platforms to know when those are happening. We're on Twitter and pretty much every other social media, including Instagram and Facebook that we really push content out to. And we'll post links of when we're playing. Just keep in mind that there are changes that happen last minute. So we may be scheduled to play tomorrow at 6pm. But you may find out at 5pm that we're not playing until 7pm. So that's the nature of no no governing body right now.
Rachel Kobus 30:59
All right, David. Well, thank you so much for joining us on our podcast. We really appreciate it and we encourage everybody to stop by the new facility and continue to just stay updated on Redbird eSports. It's going to be I think, a lot more amazing things to come in the future for Illinois State University.
That was 2016 Redbird alum and Illinois State University Redbird eSports Director David Kirk. Thanks for listening to Redbird Buzz, and be sure to tune in next time for more stories from beyond the quad.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai