Concordia University Texas Leaps Into Collegiate Esports With Official Team, Arena Having laid the necessary groundwork, the team will become a varsity program this fall By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Thursday, November 14, 2019 - 7:00 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
If you haven't heard by now, esports is kind of a big deal. Gamers like Ninja have made the sport more visible than it used to be by introducing it to the mainstream, but esports' positive momentum in popularity can be credited to the movers and shakers at the grassroots level. And, with gamers mostly in the younger demographics, colleges and universities around the globe are getting involved. One school in particular, Concordia University Texas in Austin, is making moves, establishing a NACE-certified team and filling out a 13-seat playing arena on campus.
From January to July [of 2019], we were building our arena ,and on July 30, we officially opened it to our players and announced it to the public. says Marc Valdoria, coordinator and coach, CTX Esports. What was great about it was that we had multiple departments working on this project instead of just one. When we spoke to most universities, it seemed to be the case where [the esports program] did their own thing and then tried to involve others, but, at Concordia, it was grassroots work, where everyone wanted to be involved to make sure the program was successful.
Fielding a Squad: Concordia Is First Collegiate Esports Team in Austin
This small Division III school in the heart of Texas is a fine example of how esports gains traction, but getting started on this initiative was a bit of a struggle. As for many liberal-arts institutions around the nation, gaining the attention, interest, and commitment from young adults to attend the university can sometimes be a hard bell to answer.
Concordia University Texas's new esports arena has 13 gaming stations with Dell technology and a NewTek TriCaster TC1 production switcher.
All of the other sports that we thought of were going to be too expensive and cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars, says Valdoria. [Esports] was just thrown onto the table since we needed to add another program to entice more students to come here and drive enrollment. When esports was brought up, the administration asked us how much it was going to cost, and [the price] was definitely less than what we had [as our budget].
Valdoria, a graduate of Concordia, didn't really believe that fielding an esports team in the immediate future would happen.
Everything moved extremely fast, he says. It was quite surprising that esports at Concordia happened as fast as it did. This was something we [first] talked about last year around July.
For the finishing touches, Valdoria and his superiors at the university traveled to local schools that were in the midst of developing their own esports program.
Before officially announcing that we were going to have a program at Concordia, he says, we started scouting other universities: around November or December of last year, University of Texas at Dallas and other schools.
Home Sweet Home: Inside of Concordia's Esports Arena
Heading into the second season of the program in 2019, the team will be competing in the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE), one of the major independent esports conferences within the college ranks. Concordia can now compete against nearly 300 East Coast schools and more than 150 West Coast schools in Rocket League alone. Since the program will be competing in multiple competitions across five games (besides Rocket League, Overwatch, League of Legends, PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate), Valdoria has loaded up the squad with a good number of participants.
We have five teams and a total of 40 students, he says. We recruited 10 incoming students since that was our goal; the rest are current students.
To keep pace with the number of contests and sheer number of competitors, the new arena houses 13 gaming stations (12 for players and one for Valdoria as the coach) outfitted with gaming desktops, keyboards, and other necessary equipment.
We worked with Dell to get the hardware in the arena, says Valdoria. That was through the partnership with the IT Department [and the team's AV specialist]. Another vendor that we worked with called Nelco Media deals with NewTek technologies, [and] for production systems, we have the TriCaster TC1 in the arena.
Despite having a room full of gear all its own, the team has been experiencing growing pains. In only his second year, the head coach deals with dilemmas similar to those in traditional sports.
The second-year program is filled with a total of 40 students on five competing teams.
It was quite difficult our first year, says Valdoria. I was able to schedule classes only for the incoming freshmen, so we had to play around the schedules of the current students since they were already set for the semester. During the first season, the practices, for the most part, were in the late afternoon or the evening ,and the latest we would go was about 9:00 or 10:00. It's an issue that we're trying to see if we can work with this season. If they're Overwatch players, I'll tell them that I want them to be out of class by 3:00 so we can start practice. Now they'll know not to take any classes [at that time].
With the roster and practice schedule figured out, the school is ramping up efforts to recruit students with the same fervor to produce the matches.
Right now, [the TriCaster] is being underutilized since we don't have the same student interest as we have for players, says Valdoria. We're kind of building up that side of the program now.
The Cornerstone of the Program: How Esports Can Thrive at Concordia
In jus
North America Stories
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
11/06/2026
Nielsen has released a new soccer fandom consumer research report, The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition, examining the soccer audience in the...
11/06/2026
Telemundo will launch its FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage on Thursday, June 11 with...
11/06/2026
FuboTV Inc. has announced a distribution agreement with NBCUniversal. Fubo customers can now stream Telemundo and Universo, with NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), NBC...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced its in-app features for FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage in Spain...
11/06/2026
Roblox has released the 2026 Roblox Digital Expression Report: Wave 4 - Sports D...
11/06/2026
FIFA has unveiled DNA, the Official FIFA World Cup 2026 Anthem, performed by A...
11/06/2026
ESPN will provide English- and Spanish-language news and information coverage of FIFA World Cup 2026 across its U.S. media platforms from June 11 through July 1...
11/06/2026
The latest product of the outstanding RIT Sports Network program, this recent grad from Long Island is carving out a promising path in broadcast engineering
In...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced a multi-year agreement to make DSPORTS channels available to ...
11/06/2026
Laura Dern at the 1986 Sundance Institute Directors Lab (Photo by Eric Edwards)
By Lucy Spicer
It takes a village to bring together the Sundance Institute lab...
11/06/2026
MTI FILM acquires Mango/New Edit Posted by MTI Film on June 10, 2026
LOS ANGELES, CA - June 2026 - MTI FILM, the multiple Emmy Award winning Hollywood post-p...
11/06/2026
Study underscores the need for authoritative content intelligence to build trust...
Concordia University Texas Leaps Into Collegiate Esports With Official Team, Arena Having laid the necessary groundwork, the team will become a varsity program this fall By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
