Video games have been a part of college life practically since their inception. Gaming has only increased in worldwide popularity since those days of SpaceWar! and Pong, and as time moves forward, it is becoming more and more difficult to find a college without some form of gaming club.

UT is no exception to this trend, because on top of the many groups of friends that play video games together on their own terms, there is also UTK Esports.

UTK Esports is the predominant gaming club at Tennessee that, as its name suggests, has a focus on esports, which is a form of competition using video games. Primary organization advisor and Tennessee data analyst Jason Smethers details the club’s main purpose.

“It is a place for students, faculty and staff who want to grow and learn about the gaming and esports industry to gather with others (as well as) to expand and deepen their knowledge and skills in esports,” Smethers said.

He also explains that, at its core, the club is about gaming, which is not exclusive to anyone to enjoy.

“The club will always be a welcoming home for all gamers to gather together with new and old friends to play games,” Smethers said.

UTK Esports offers quite a few opportunities for high skill gamers in the form of collegiate level teams.

It has an ever-growing list of teams that participate in tournaments for different games, as well as several individuals that represent the club and the university in non-team based esports games, like fighting games and real time strategy games.

UTK Esports student president and senior studying marketing Michael Slandzicki details the process of creating these teams and gives some general insight into their structure.

“Each year a representative is selected for our competitive games,” Slandzicki said. “These representatives host tryouts, and then it is their responsibility to form the competitive teams. Most teams do not have an official coach, but they do normally have a team captain.”

Every semester, each of the competitive teams tries to participate in at least one tournament. These tournaments could span anywhere from a few days to a couple months. The longer tournaments are generally much higher profile than the shorter ones and have large organizations behind them like Tespa and even the publisher of the game itself.

In terms of tournament success, UTK Esports has been somewhat lacking. Last semester, the Overwatch team and Rainbow Six Siege B team both lost the first round of the playoffs for their respective tournaments, while the two Rocket League teams and Rainbow Six A team failed to make it into the playoffs.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though, because the Smite team almost managed to fight their way out of the loser’s bracket of the National Association of Collegiate Smite Championships, finishing in the top 8. However, that tournament was much smaller than the ones for the other previously mentioned games.

The team that has had the greatest success to date is the Heroes of the Storm team. In 2016, they took part in the aptly named Heroes of the Dorm tournament. They beat out many other college teams across the United States and Canada to be among the final four teams, known as The Heroic Four, where they were ultimately defeated with zero match wins in their final round, finishing tied for third and fourth alongside the University of Connecticut.

However, due to the publisher of Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard, cancelling all esports events for the game that it sponsored, including Heroes of the Dorm, it remains to be seen whether Tennessee will have a competing Heroes of the Storm team this year.

Despite the relatively low competitive performance of UTK Esports, Smethers is still hopeful about what the club can accomplish.

“We hope to have great success this year with our competitive teams,” Smethers said. “All of our major teams will be competing in a variety of intercollegiate tournaments and we hope that a few of them will win their leagues. We also hope to one day become a fully formed department at Tennessee that hosts many competitive teams and provides proper scholarships to our students, and proper research support to faculty on campus interested in gaming scholarship.”