 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Katharine Norr. Today, our topic is the Amateur eSports Association. My guest is Sam Williams, the development director of that organization. Welcome, Sam. Hi. Thank you for having me today. I'm very excited to be on the show. Fantastic. Okay. So what is the Amateur eSports Association? Awesome. I'm glad you asked. The Amateur eSports Association is a new nonprofit that was started with my co-workers in Stillwater, Oklahoma, although we operate primarily online. We started up in June and recently received our nonprofit designation in November officially, and so we run eSports Leagues for Youth. Our mission is to legitimize youth eSports, and so any way that we could do that, we would love to do, and how we're first tackling that big beast is by running a youth league. And currently, we just started up our pre-season for the spring season, and our game of love from all of our students ended up being Rocket League this time. And so we ran our first trial season, season zero, so to speak, last fall. It was a series of tournaments that we did, where we played Valorant, League of Legends, Overwatch, and Rocket League. And so any of the students that won in those tournaments got free entry into our league, which at the end of it, if you win, has a pretty decent scholarship prize at the end of it. I know they've been working with the numbers based off of what we have, so I don't have that total off the top of my head, but that's our goal, is to give scholarships to these kids so that they can pursue their eSports career outside of high school when they graduate into college, or if that be just straight into their job. And so, yeah, we work with kids aged 13 to 18 primarily. What motivated your team and you to work with the business? Yeah, that's a great question, actually. A lot of us come from an eSports background, whether it be through the university that is with us. I know I helped work on building the eSports arena at Oklahoma State University. And a lot of them were coaches and players themselves on a collegiate level. And so we all kind of said, we wish that we had this experience when we were younger, that we were able to have these teams, have these club events, but we weren't able to get into the industry until we were in college. We also wanted to make a more legitimate eSports scene, as our mission entails, because we saw a lot of confusion and not like coordination within the eSports field, because there's all these pop-up companies, since it's so new, everyone wants their hand in it. But it's not very centralized, and that's eventually where we hope to go. And a lot of that comes from being able to be online. And we also wanted to provide opportunity. We didn't want to just give eSports. We wanted to grow that opportunity in job prospects. And after you're done with the eSports team, if that's not something that you want to pursue long term as a player, maybe you want to go into broadcasting. Maybe you want to go into the legal world, because eSports is so new in the legal world, you know, that's really hard to get into. So any of those different jobs, we want to be able to give those kids the opportunity because we didn't see an easy entry ourselves into it without starting it ourselves, but also we want to, you know, unify these students and bring them together in a place that they can enjoy after school, feel safe, and bring something out of it tangible at the end of it, whether that be that scholarship for that college experience, or whether that just be them helping find, you know, maybe eSports isn't what I wanted to do. Maybe there's something else that I wanted to do instead. We want to give those kids a chance to explore those options. Now, the name Amateur eSports Association doesn't have a collegiate type name. Are you accepting of those who are amateur eSports players that are not going to college or who are sort of outside of that arena? Only if they're under 18. We are working on ways to siphon them into college level or other amateur level programs outside of what we do. But since ours is primarily youth focused, we don't have a place directly for them. But that's why we're working on partnerships to filter them in on the next steps, whatever that may be, as well as trainings on how to get the next steps going. Like this summer, we want to put on a summer camp that does like broadcast training so that they can actually run our streams for us and learn the process. We'll be behind them, mentoring them through that process. So we want to give them the ideas and the courage, I think, to really take up the mantle, but that's not where we transition them afterwards. So, let me ask you, why is AEA a non-profit rather than a for-profit organization? Yeah, that's something that I feel like we get asked a lot for the AEA. We were on the fence about what to sign on as, but we decided at the end of the day, a lot of us came from lower class situations, living situations, growing up. And we weren't just in it for the profit, although, of course, a lot of us do want to make a job out of this and intend to. But we wanted to make it as easy as possible to get students funding and scholarships. We want as many free teams as we can get entered, which means that we need people to be willing to do those tax write-offs. And so we thought the non-profit would really incentivize people to get on board in helping funding these programs because it's not for the profit. It's not for us to make a whole lot of money off of the industry. I think a lot of people do that great in the industry, and that's awesome. But we wanted to fill more of a need for those kids and the low-income communities or for minorities or for more women to get involved. So we have a lot of options in scholarshiping in those types of teams. I actually just finished working out our forms for the applications for all girls teams, for minority-based teams, and then how we're going to decide the income levels for those scholarships to join in our league for free. Are you having any difficulty attracting girls into your program? I think a bit. It's really hard to get through that stigma. Me being a girl myself, I had to argue with my parents over and over. Like, this is something that I could do. Like, I could move forward with this. And eventually I was like, maybe I'll get into game design. And I was talking about job opportunities. And that's when my parents finally caught on. Like, this is something real that she can do. And it's not just a boy's sport. And so we're hoping that that scholarship for girls teams really incentivizes them to come in. But as usual, with eSports, we do have an influx of male majority. So that's why we're actively working to combat that right now. So you go by Sam, but your real name is Alexander, right? Yes. Are you like, do you kind of hide behind that more masculine name a bit? Like, people think that you're a male in gaming? Sometimes it helps and sometimes it hurts. Yeah. My middle name's Samantha. So that's it comes from somewhere, I promise. But I've noticed something really interesting before I was involved in the gaming industry, every email, nobody would assume my gender. But every gaming related email that I send because I have an androgynous name, it always comes back as Mr. Williams. And you know, it's always that uncomfortable conversation to correct. But it's it's that like little thing to show that that stigma is still there, which is why it's kind of something that's a passion project of mine to kind of break women into the scene and bring up the women numbers, which I think I did pretty well in my previous experiences running a lot of the gaming at OSU. I feel like I made them a lot more comfortable to come forward and join the team because I saw a woman running the ship. So hopefully that can keep coming. And I think I'm really excited to see how that stuff works out because I'd love to, you know, get those emails where they don't assume the gender. I'd love to see all girl teams, all of those things. So that's something I'm looking forward to. Now, that's one thing that I've been surprised at in eSports is that there is this challenge to make it equal in terms of men and women. And that so many so it's sort of a male dominant kind of opportunity or even ecosystem. But, you know, I'm hoping that with efforts, it'll ultimately just it won't even be an issue before, I mean, anymore. So are there opportunities for companies to sponsor the AEA and and get brand promotion? Yeah, so I built out our scholar. That was probably the first document I built out was our sponsorship forum and how that would look and the different tiers that we're able to offer. But companies are most definitely able to do so, especially through contact with me as the development director. They would get brand recognition on all of our social media on our weekly streams because we stream every single Thursday night. During the league, as well as in our communications, such as our Discord server that we used to communicate to the kids and promotion on our website. Are you streaming on Twitch or Discord or? Yeah, we are live streaming on Twitch. It's at amateur eSports on Twitch. And so that's where we will be streaming our weekly games right now. Our weekly Rocket League games to be specific for our spring season. All right, so how can students get involved with the excuse me? Yeah, so they can get involved very simply by going to our website. And there's a couple of ways that they can take it. They can contact us and sign up as like a free agent or they could go under the club section in our website, which has a list of all of the eSports centers and organizations that we've partnered with who actively put teams in our league. So that's easy because they already have a team built out. And if they have space for you, then you have a team signed up, ready to go. Otherwise, we'll put one together for you as free agents. So on your website, you have sections for clubs, programs and competitions. Can you explain the difference between those? Yeah, so our programs just lay out, you know, what we have going on. Whenever it was last school semester for the kids, it was all of our tournaments laid out. And then now with our spring seasons, since that's what we're actively working on and promoting, that's what it's going to present. And then for our competitions, you can actually get live data on how the competitions are going. Of course, since we are starting this week, there isn't much data to go off of. But you can see updated scores as they come out. Play by play kind of thing. You can see the matchups, all that important data that you want to know as a kid, seeing like, how am I doing against all of these other kids? How am I doing against all of these other teams? You know, and check their placements. OK, so we know that if you're a player, you have an advantage if you get into a game at the beginning, like right when it's released, like a later, you know, Valorant was released about a year ago. Valorant players started right away. They would have an advantage. Is there any advantage to getting involved in in your organization earlier than later? Yeah, there is. And so one of the great ways we saw that was with our tournaments last semester, where our since it was our trial run, it wasn't a very large scale tournament. So it wasn't as difficult to win one of those as it would be one that we're planning for the next year. That would have a lot more students involved. And so you just have less matchups and less high tier competition. And then that got you, if you want, free entry into our league. And so it was great to for all of those teams that got started right off the bat, four different teams from each of the games. We didn't have any double up winners. So four teams got free ride into our spring league for us. And so same thing here. We're going to keep doing the same thing. We get privileges to the winners and a lot of recognition. So it's great to get involved early because it's even easier to grab that scholarship fund than it will be in the future, just as we naturally grow. And, you know, when we talk about our organizations and their value only, you know, you know, more than anyone the value of your organization. How do you think that market people involved in marketing or sponsors would benefit from sponsoring or or marketing through your website or through your organization? Yeah, I think since especially that our goal is to legitimize youth esports, we do make it one of our top priorities to be as professional as possible. We're not like kind of a gotcha kind of company. We're not super flashy because at the end of the day, our goal is to be somewhat like the NCAA. We really love club sports. And so brands that want to, you know, market through us to sponsor us, they get the benefit of being a part of a nonprofit that they can say, like, hey, this is a great nonprofit that we're partnered with. They give scholarships to students, which sounds great on on your ethics standpoint, on your corporate social responsibilities. And so it really just helps you legitimize your company as well as something that's looking for that social impact, as well as, you know, just supporting some great groups of kids. These kids are hilarious and great to work with. I mean, like this, the names that they have, the team names that they get, it's all hilarious. And you can't not love that being a part of what they're doing. It's just it brings a lot of joy naturally, but also a lot of that corporate social responsibility, as I'm talking about. Sure. And on your website, you have a resources section. What kind of resources does your company offer? Yeah, primarily that tab is used for our scholarship form for getting involved in the AEA, as well as our blogs. So that's another little place that we're trying to legitimize the youth eSports by talking professionally in these blog posts about different aspects of the industry. We have some articles on some of the games we feature, like Fortnite is one of our very popular games among the kids, as well as how safe eSports is for kids stuff about what is overwatch. A lot of this is also parent resources on how they can figure out, you know, what this industry is because a lot of the language that somebody in the industry uses is far different from what parents use. And so getting parents more comfortable with that speech, what everything is kind of basic rundown so that they can get their kids involved, but also just more information. That's really what we care about, is getting more information on the eSports world out there that doesn't make us look like the basement nerds or whatever like stereotype might be surrounding it, because that's not the reality of it. It's just as legitimate as your regular youth sport or professional sport. So have you experienced any pushback from parents? I am fortunate enough to not be working directly with the parents. But I know from what I've been hearing that, you know, parents, they're super protective of their kids and they want what's best for them. And anything that stigmatizes their kid, you know, is something that they're going to worry about, which is why we're trying to combat that a little bit. But yeah, there's been some, you know, I don't want my kid participating in something where they're not going to be physical, they're not going to be active. They're not going to get anything out of it. But that's just strictly not true. A lot of that is listed in the eSports Beneficial for Kids article. But, you know, like it promotes teamwork, collaboration, open communication, improved social skills. It does all of these things. Hand eye coordination, dexterity, even things that you wouldn't assume that you could get from video gaming, you do. And so that's just kind of what we try to explain to parents. And most of them, after taking a more open mind to it and kind of stepping back from that stigma, will understand. And also they listen to their kids. And if this is something their kid wants and is excited about, that's what they do. Sure. And, you know, it's interesting because a lot of people who, you know, might not really know much about gaming. You mentioned the word eSports and they basically have to Google it because they've never heard about it before. I mean, there's a lot of challenge in bridging that gap between generations, kind of the gaming generation and the older generation who may not be gamers or may not appreciate it or have not been around it. But, you know, when you were talking about the benefits, I was thinking it's brain exercise. So it might not be physical exercise, but it's brain exercise in a lot of ways. Right. You know, when you talk about the, you know, the eSports ecosystem and, you know, having these opportunities career-wise to channel into. And so I see that as kind of a benefit here. So how your company was started during the pandemic. How is that and how has the pandemic impacted your organization's activities and mission? Yeah, it's been interesting for sure. We did know what we were getting into, luckily, because we did choose to start during the pandemic. Luckily, I know a lot of eSports organizations started right before and then we're just hit with it and had to completely reassess. So I'm very thankful that we at least knew what we were getting into. The thing that it's hit us the most with is really just our national championships. That's what happens at the end of our spring season, where we do give out the scholarships for those the kids that win. And it's just, you know, we want to do an in-person event as much as possible. We want to get them all of those scholarships live and in person, make it a huge sporting event that they can appreciate, that their parents can appreciate. So that's our biggest concern right now, but we'll make it work whatever comes our way. You know, we're still waiting, seeing, just as everyone else is on this pandemic, but we do operate very, very well online. And so kids have definitely benefited from that. We've actually, ironically, had a lot of kids that even though they were competing online, their school districts were closing. And so some of our schools backed out last minute from our league, which hurts our hearts a little bit because, you know, the one thing that kid needs right now while they're going into isolation is that connection and that grouping. So we're hoping that a lot of them will sign on as free agents rather than through their school districts if they can possibly play at home. And I noticed that there was a question from a viewer about some of these fun club names. So a lot of things that we do will organize them and we'll label them as a color, like just arbitrarily something that we can throw at them. And then we say, OK, pick your name. And so when we say, OK, there's red team, orange team, yellow team, green team, they think that they're stuck with it. And it's hilarious because they get so focused on the color that they're like, this is what we have to be named. And so one of the teams, they were the red team. They wanted to be named red riots after an anime character in My Hero Academia. And after some deliberation, one of the coaches was like, you know, like if you wanted to be named after an animal, there's always the red pandas and they loved it. They lost it. We've had stuff like peanut butter and jellies. Like they just it's it's something that you wouldn't correlate with eSports. You'd think that they would go something for like the the steel vipers or something, you know? But then they're like, I want to be named peanut butter and jelly. And you're like, that's adorable. I love that. And you're keeping it. Like I couldn't come up with anything better than what you just did. That's terrific. So, yeah, thanks for answering that question from our viewer. So do you have any future projects besides what you have mentioned? Yeah, so future projects, we are just now working on that with our partnerships. Mainly what we're going to do for the summer. We have a leak that we're running for a company in the summer, as well as summer camps that we're planning right now. And then, of course, we'll just keep doing our regular leagues in the fall and then in the spring as a six month season for these kids that they can participate in. And the biggest thing is just expanding our game titles and what we can do for them. So are you a gamer? I am. I have been gaming since really since I can remember. I got a gameboy and a wee as soon as they came out. And ever since then I was gone. I spent my first paycheck at my first real job waitressing buying my first PC rig and have loved every second of it. So that's how I got thrown into the industry was I was looking for gaming opportunities, casually found eSports and then said, whoa, I could do this competitively. And so, yeah, I play all sorts of games. I basically played every one of the games that our youth kids have been playing as well as a plethora of others as they've come out. All right, so I'll give you the last word, Sam. Tell us how people can find you. Yeah, so amateur eSports dot org is the best resources hands down. It links you to our Twitter, to our Twitch, to our YouTube, to our Instagram, Facebook, et cetera. And so that is the best way to get any information about the amateur eSports Association, and you can find our contact information there. You can also email me. I'm happy to answer any questions, even if it's just like generic eSports type questions, not specifically related to the AEA. I especially love answering questions parents have just about what eSports is. So you can always email me at Sam W at amateur eSports dot org. Terrific. Well, thank you so much, Sam. We learned a lot today. Yeah, thank you. I am so glad you had me. I just love spreading the message of what we're doing and, you know, further legitimizing youth eSports, which you've definitely been doing here with Think Tech Hawaii. All right, so thank you to our viewer for the question today. And thank you for joining us next week. My guest will be John Cash, founder and global professor at John C. Smith University's Gaming and eSports Initiative. See you then.