Few events draw a gaming crowd like esports matches, and the League of Legends Championship of the Americas was no exception. The event, which took place on September 27th and 28th in Plano, Texas, was attended by Dr. Wil Fisackerly, a lecturer of sports business in the Price College of Business.
Dr. Fisackerly attended the event with John “Popcorn” Morgan, the Competitive Lead for OU Esports and Co-Curricular Innovation, and three members of their VALORANTteam. Fisackerly attended the event to network with North Texas and Dallas Metro schools for esports, as well as gain classroom learning opportunities.
Fisackerly previously attended the LCS, or League Championship Series, in 2023, which had a venue that fit over 18,000 people. While that event space wasn’t filled, LTA’s venue, which fit 6,000, had much higher energy overall.
“Everything felt like there was a purpose behind it,” Fisackerly said. “It was a fantastic venue to host.”
While esports events and matches are hosted online, many events are held in person, and there’s a large market for that.
“While streaming and online competition are a huge aspect of what makes the esports ecosystem work, it’s the in-person events that remind us why it even exists,” Fisackerly said.
LTA also hosted fan fests before the matches each day, where attendees had the opportunity to meet with sponsors, such as Kia, Red Bull and Mastercard. They provided attendees with incentives to visit all the sponsors.
“They give you these cars that have every single sponsor on them,” Fisackerly said. “And if you go to all the sponsors and get your card punched, you will get a goodie bag from the LTA after completing a fan experience survey.”
Sponsors are the lifeblood of professional esports teams and give the funding necessary for in-person esports events to function. Publicity and transparency at events is important because fans need to know who is sponsoring events like LTA.
OU Esports can learn a lot from the structure of LTA and other big-budget gaming events.
“What do we do that provides value?” Fisackerly posed. “What is the value of a sponsor to be correlated to us here at the university?”
Securing sponsorships is a business-focused practice. It takes time and effort from both the sponsors and the sponsorees.
“The more we can connect those dots and make that a part of the pitch, the more likely that we will have good and active sponsors,” Fisackerly said. “It will be a win-win situation. Our fans and students actually derive value from that sponsorship.”
By nature, collegiate esports programs have more in-person points of contact than professional programs. OU Esports and the Gaming Club, for example, host weekly events from the Super Smash Bros. Sooner Dojo Series to In-House events with a variety of available games.
“(OU ECCI) is education, community, and competition,” Fisackerly said. “It affords a unique opportunity here, and any type of sponsorship that we may see for ECCI has the opportunity to go deeper than a traditional sponsorship.”
Collegiate programs such as OU ECCI have more in-person interactions and more opportunities for sponsors to directly interact with students. The community is a powerful tool to leverage for sponsorships.
“In the system that we have, you need to set yourself up for success,” Fisackerly said. “That means we can’t just come up with 20 different sponsorships that are $100 each. We need to go big.”
Fisackerly suggested that in order to go bigger, OU ECCI should put an expectation on current sponsors to come to events and engage with these “touch points.” More active engagement both ways would benefit both parties.
Fisackerly also envisions avenues for OU Esports to evolve in the near future. North Texas and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex are becoming esports hubs.
“There’s a lot of energy around esports in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,” Fisackerly said. “We need to be preparing ourselves for those opportunities because they’re going to need student interns.”
OU has the opportunity to expand collegiate esports opportunities and help prepare students for the professional world thanks to its southern neighbors. There are more opportunities than ever to break into a more successful world.
Events like LTA are an incredible opportunity to learn about professional esports and sponsorships. The event rejuvenated Fisackerly’s love and passion for esports.
“Going to this even reinvigorated that passion for why I got my Ph.D and why I wanted to be in this industry.”
