Esports has enjoyed a large bump in popularity in the last five to 10 years.
Tournaments have emerged from basements into convention centers and arenas. The purse for victorious teams has increased exponentially. From League of Legends to NBA 2K, the rise has been precipitous. The University of New Mexico even added their own Esports club in September 2018.
The club has established teams in the following games; League of Legends, Overwatch, Hearthstone and Rainbow 6: Siege. It is an exciting year for the club as they will be competing in several tournaments and championships. The League of Legends team will be participating in the Mountain West Esports Series. The League of Legends team is playing for a spot in the playoffs which was played in Las Vegas last year for the first time in conjunction with the Mountain West basketball tournaments.
Their matches can be caught on their Twitch channel — the last video uploaded was a League of Legends match against Colorado State University which saw UNM fall after two games in a best of three. Their next match-up is against undefeated Boise State on March 2.
The Overwatch team is playing in the Collegiate Championship Regional/National League in the Mountain West Esports Series. The Hearthstone team will be in the 2019 Collegiate Championships and the Rainbow 6: Siege team will participate in the Collegiate Rainbow 6 Open.
It’s an exciting time in the Esports club, but as a new group they have some expanding to do. There are some competitive collegiate games that they have not been able to fill out a team for, like Rocket League. They also have some administrative needs, namely team management, content creators, and social media management. There are approximately 100 members in the club at various levels of participation.
The Esports club is lead by President Steven Mejia who has dreams to expand the club by hosting on campus tournaments in popular games like Super Smash Bros. Currently the best way to join or gain information on the club is to join the Discord server, follow the group on social media @UNMEsports, or check out the official UNM website, esports.unm.edu.
Mark Jacobson is a freelance sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers men’s and women’s golf, but also contributes content for various other sports. He can be contacted at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @aztwoabq.
