Varsity Esports

Hi, my name is Jason Chung, I'm executive director of Esports, and assistant professor of sport management here at the University of New Haven. I came here after building the first eSports business courses at New York University. And, you know, I'm an attorney by trade. And basically, I combined my love of technology with traditional sports. And we've been building some exciting things here at the university. It's a great program, you know, really innovative were the first AACSB accredited institution looking at offering eSports degree programs. And basically the students here are learning about the industry of Esports, as opposed to just playing eSports. They're learning about, you know, how the business runs, well, how it's structured, and how to really build a career in this exciting new field.

So this is really a dream come true for me. So growing up an avid gamer, I've been always been paying attention to the whole eSports scene. So now, with just recently being stationed in New Haven, I saw that the University of New Haven had an Esports program. So I love the competition aspect of it. I love the gaming aspect of it.

So the student outcome is really set from player to player, roster to roster, program to program. Our program priorities, in my opinion, are taking all the intangibles out that they're doing day in day out already and showcasing them to the world, and really helping them for their future. So intangibles, meaning leadership, critical thinking, working within a team, and all of those things, we think about what happens in competition. And you know, for a very long time, people look at eSports video games as a time waster. But really try and get away from that and showcase all the great work people are doing day to day. And you know, using that to further ourselves in and out of game.

So we've got very good staff members here that kind of help us out and make us not only feel like a student, but like as a team itself. So like Cory helps us a lot. He plays games with us to, not only while coaching us, so it makes us feel better-- we can look at him like a friend while we're playing. We've got Jason, who kind of-- when I did my hyper X class of this summer, he did a very good job of making sure that we were all working together, and he made-- like being in class one, then I gotta say for like Dan and Rob, they did a very good job of making sure that like, we felt comfortable, like getting into the program. And they made sure that we were all welcomed in, which was really nice.

You know, I would love to support the eSports scene as it's growing, and hopefully by then it will be grown to a point where you know, it might be an Olympic sport, hopefully.

I'm just super blessed to be here, just excited to be a part of this whole program be amongst the students, be on the varsity team itself, and be attached to the program and the university. So it's an amazing opportunity to be able to have my passion, and then be able to go to school for that. It's amazing.

Yeah, I'd like to thank the President and Dr. Z for having such a strong vision in eSports. Something that I really connected with it versus where they're trying to go with it when it came to the academics and varsity side. And you know, this is year one, but I'm really excited to see what happens in five or 10 years from now.

The support of the entire UNH community is crucial to the next stage of development for this program. And really, we're going to be launching some exciting things going forward. We're launching the first Master's of Esports Business in North America, and the first online program of its kind in the entire world as well. So we're really doing some things that are groundbreaking and revolutionary. So we hope that you're excited by it and want to join us for the ride.