About this episode
Featured Guests:
Danny White - UCF Athletic Director
Richard Lapchick - Director, DeVos Sports Business Management Program
Ben Noel - Executive Director, Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy
Tony Schiller - Executive Vice President and Partner, Paragon Marketing Group
Abiel Payano - President, UCF Gaming Knights
Episode Transcription:
Paul Jarley: You remember that, right? Well, video games have come a long way since then. It’s no longer just guys playing in their moms’ basements. Now teams play in their own arenas. They’re ranked in coach’s polls, have television contracts and even their own sneakers. 380 million people say they are fans. The China championship sold 80,000 tickets in one minute. Your son or daughter likely has a favorite team. Danny White and Dale Whittaker would do well to help the UCF Gaming Knights be part of this global phenomenon. The college experience is changing my friends, welcome to e-sports.
This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into to the future of business. Have you ever wondered, is this really a thing? Onto our show…
Danny White: We feel strongly that we have every right to claim the national championship and that’s why we’re doing it.
Shaquem Griffin: You know, the only things we can do is win games and we won all of them. If you want to put one more in front of us, we’ll probably win that one too.
Jarley: Yes, we’re the self-proclaimed national champions of college football. And unless you’ve in a closet for the last six months, you know Shaquem Griffin’s story. It was a great year to be a UCF Knight. But I sometimes wonder if college football isn’t really the last war. Maybe the next war is e-sports.
E-sports? Listen in. No that’s not a crowd reacting to a Justin Upton homer. It’s Justin Wong making an epic comeback in a game of Street Fighter in 2004. Ask any 16-year-old boy about e-sports, and whether UCF should field a team, and you get an answer like this.
Spencer: It’s a great idea, honestly, I’d watch it.
Jarley: Trust me that’s Spencer being excited. He’s a man of few words and in fairness to him, I was interrupting his game of Fortnite, so I kept my interrogation short.
Jarley Interviewing: And how much would you pay to go to an event?
Spencer: However much it would take I guess, how much they would charge.
Jarley: I needed to get up to speed on this whole e-sports thing. So I went to visit Ben Noel. Ben is a former EA Sports executive and currently heads up UCF’s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy. That’s our nationally renowned video gaming program in Downtown Orlando.
Jarley Interviewing: So Ben, I know you’ve been in the gaming industry for quite a while. What is e-sports?
Noel: Well e-sports is short for electronic sports and it was basically, you’re playing competitive gaming.
Jar
