Intro
It’s a new year! You’re hyped! We’re hyped! Let’s get going! This is the start of our 8th year of being a thing/topic/development at OU. From our humble student organization to the now full department of Esports & Co-Curricular Innovation (ECCI) within the Division of Student Affairs at The University of Oklahoma we got here by trying to incorporate ALL gaming energies.
We struggle at being tunnel visioned and one-dimensional and due to that we have a ton of different things to get involved with. It all starts on July 22, 2025 @ 6PM CST! Whether you are a traditional, international, grad/Ph.d student, or faculty/staff there is something for you all! The purpose of this article is to help you understand the dynamic nature of all things ECCI, its opportunities, and to arm you with as much insight to make your decision once YOU are ready.
Next to this is a general list of terms/roles we have across our community and developments. There is a lot and the most important thing to know is if you have questions, just DM any admin in the OU Gaming Club Server and we’ll provide more context. We’re built this way because while we are a gaming community FIRST, we pride ourselves on also having pathways for students to use their love of gaming and esports energies in many different ways. Playing games or attending events is perfectly fine, but there is way more opportunity at OU for these topics than just that. It all starts with joining our Discord.
Join Our Discord
Terminology
GENERAL TERMS
- GENERAL MEMBER: Anybody inside our Discord server.
- REGISTERED MEMBER: Any student, staff, or faculty at OU who fills out the general registration form in our Discord server.
- DEVELOPMENT STUDENT: Any student at OU who fills out the general registration form PLUS applies and is accepted into any of our developments.
DEVELOPMENT TERMS/ROLES
- COMMUNITY & LABS (C&L): Aimed at putting on events, programming, and activities for everyone.
- Lab Staff (Payroll)
- Event Planners/Tournament Organizers (Volunteer/Payroll)
- CREATIVE CONTENT – MARKETING: Our team who manages the brand voice and showcasing of real-time news, milestones, and promotionals.
- Marketeer/Graphic Designer (Payroll)
- CREATIVE CONTENT – MEDIA & NEWS: The team that manages article creation, event documentation, multimedia pre-recorded content, departmental AND industry news, opinion publications, annual newsletter.
- Videographer (Volunteer/Payroll)
- Writers (Volunteer/Payroll)
- CREATIVE CONTENT – PRODUCTION: Our live interactive content arm focused on the production of live matches, podcasts, and live event coverage on our Twitch, YouTube, or other streaming platforms.
- Producer (Volunteer/Payroll)
- Caster/On-Air Talent (Volunteer/Payroll)
- COMPETITION: Representing OU in formal competition against other universities in sanctioned leagues and tournaments.
- Gamer (Volunteer)
Where to Begin
After you join the Discord you can choose to just stop there and lurk. That is part of our culture too and completely endorsed! That’s also the point of this whole guide. You go as far as YOU want, but at least educate yourself on what’s out there so you can make a decision. We recommend checking out the #info-and-rules section to understand how we will conduct our behavior and what you can and can’t do in this official university Discord server.
- If you want to go to the next tier then we recommend you head to the #applications channel and fill out the general membership application identifying as a student, staff, faculty, alumni, or partner/industry peer on any OU Campus. Just realize that most/all physical programming is based on Norman campus unless otherwise defined. A simple and small questionaire will pop up and once you submit, we validate it, and grant you the appropriate permissions to see more of the server. This step is recommended for all OU students heavily. Why? Because your registration helps us report our demographic information to OU. This further allows us to petition and request more support from OU to bolster gaming and esports energies overall. PLEASE FILL THIS OUT!! Even if you intend to just be a lurker.
- This is a COMMUNITY, we can’t build or steer the ship without more insight into our students and general population. Take a moment and head to #introductions and introduce yourself.
- For Staff/Faculty/Alumni, this is where your journey ends. We do allow for your involvement in things from a leadership perspective or support capacity but to entertain this you must DM an admin in Discord or email [email protected].
- NOW this is where you have to start really thinking about what you want to get involved in, if at all. Below this series of steps is a TL;DR break down of each area you can apply for and get involved in further if you choose to. Take your time and you can do this anytime, but we strongly recommend doing it before school starts for all programs, however, Competitive Programs will be hosting tryouts in August and you cannot expect inclusion after a tryout date until the next cycle unless the head of that team wants to entertain that further. PERK ALERT: Development students gain personal lounge usage for free when its open and year-round!
- That’s it! We have evolved this work flow extensively over the years to keep you engaged and try to simplify our numerous options into single locations for engagement. We’re always open to feedback and any comments you have can be directed to any @admin role or specifically @oculus and/or @moogdiesel. For the freshmen & transfers, welcome to The University of Oklahoma. To our returning members, welcome back!
Member & Program Guide (IF YOU WANT MORE!)
Before we get into the programs let’s talk about what you already have access to and what you can do. As a general/registered member of the OU Gaming Club you have OU channels only where general (un-registered members) cannot chat. Talk like normal in here. It is very common every year to have newcomers to OU asking about general campus information such as where are things located, best practice to acclimating to campus life, what to expect, asking for help in general, and of course in the numerous channels seeking people to game with.
Additionally, The OU Gaming & Esports Lounge, located on the East side of Cross B, is open 7-days a week to the campus. On the weekends, we open it up to the public as well. Hours of availabilty and cost will be promoted publicly closer to the first week of September. Until that time, the lounge will officially open right after move-in happens and will remain free to use for the remainder of August at a minimum. Come through! From dedicated gaming PCs, consoles, racing rigs, and VR, come visit and use your gaming home on campus. Now for all the extra-curricular programs we offer.
Community & Labs
The Discord server you just joined is the home for our entire community and is the foundational launchpad to more, if you choose. This team manages the Discord itself, runs the lounge 7 days a week, puts on events, programming, mixers, watch parties, and more. Ranging from free-to-attend events for students, to paid open to the public events for the region, and for Fall 2025 and on, our new esports intramural leagues. This team is what keeps our big community content, heard, and staying current.
Associated Brand(s)
Creative Content - Media & News
The Media & News team are our storytellers. They create artifacts for our collective energies in the form of articles, multimedia content, and more. The Sooner Esports Media Outlet is the home to release community, departmental, and industry news all at once. This can range from covering a current competitive team, an upcoming league, a major industry event like a Nintendo Direct, do hardware/software reviews, student spotlights, and even express their own opinion and perspective on topics. The only rule, it must pertain to gaming and esports news and its relatable peer industries and/or subcultures; anime is a great example of outside projects of inclusion.
In August, we will be taking the wraps off our new media outlet that will live alongside Sooner Esports and allow for better focus on topics of interest. Sooner Esports will stay focused on departmental and industry topics as it correlates to “esports” contexts. The new outlet will focus more on the “gaming” side of community and industry topics. Here are some examples:
- Sooner Esports: OU Valorant Team Season Preview, OU ECCI Announces New Partnership with McDonald’s Gaming, University of Oklahoma Adds “Esports” as a Topic of Focus in University-Wide Strategic Plan
- New Outlet: Nintendo Direct Reveals……, Take a Look at This Upcoming Indie Game, New Mecha Break Game Answers the Hunger for More Gundam Combat Games, Who Remembers Among Us?
Associated Brand(s)
Creative Content - Production
The Production Team is focused on bring our events and teams onto live interactive streaming platforms such as Twitch and YouTube Live. They cover official matches of our teams including shoutcasting (gameplay narration) and producing. However, it does not stop there. We also produce podcasts that can cover gaming and/or esports topics as well as collaborate with other organizations and departments at OU to bring their events to life. We’ve done live performances in Meacham Auditorium as well as streamed robotics competitions as a few examples.
With over 15 titles now entering development in our Competition Program, having casters and producers to cover all of them is always a challenge. Maybe you’re not the sweatiest in the title you love, why not be the face and voice for the team instead? Here is your chance to do just that on OU’s ONLY licensed Twitch channel.
Associated Brand(s)
Competition
The Competitive Program is OU’s official esports efforts in sanctioned leagues and tournaments. This is the highest level of commitment as most teams exceed 12-15+ hours per week of focus between playback review, team building, and official match play. There is a wonderful feeling practicing, building team dynamics, and then flexing on another university with it. Some of our titles compete in leagues that have anywhere from 20 other teams all the way to well over 100 in a single season.
We take this effort seriously enough that it has the most regulation and enforcement versus anything else we do. Why? Imagine if The University of Oklahoma builds a Call of Duty team that formally and officially represents OU in CoD. We have to conduct ourselves with a level of pride, focus, and respect. The entire competition aspect of esports also has a higher probability of students forgetting why they are at OU in the first place, to get an education. So we make sure that regardless of win or loss we rep strong and proper!
Here is our launching lineup of titles: Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Chess, EA College Football, Counter Strike 2, Halo Infinite, iRacing, League of Legends, Madden, Mario Kart World, NBA2K, Overwatch 2, Rainbow Six Siege, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, & VALORANT.
Tryout days for all titles will start being marketing shortly after we reset on the 22nd. Don’t miss tryouts if you’re interested!
Associated Brand(s)
Joined, Applied, and/or Lurking....What's Next?
If you joined and/or registered and stopped there, then mingle, introduce yourself, and enjoy the lurking in the shadows. It’s perfectly fine! However, look for marketing to start hitting focusing our lounge schedule and our annual back to school event that happens at the end of first week of class. We have tons of giveaways, events, mixers, and more! SAVE THE DATE!
If you applied to any program, we will have dedicated channels for each opportunity to have direct communications to be able to ask anything and get in contact with leadership over that area and/or previous year development students.
If you applied for Community & Labs or Creative Content Program expect the coordinator and/or lead from each to contact you for an interview through DMs.
If you applied to tryout for a Competition Program, we’ll start heavily promoting tryouts and you can use the above mentioned channels for communication.
Our Social Links
We strongly encourage you to follow us across our social channels. We do actively push major notifications and awareness messages to Discord, however, there are many times we post to socials only so we don’t bombard Discord with pings.
OU GAMING CLUB LINKS
OU ESPORTS & DEPARTMENTAL LINKS
