Marshall esports will host its first major gaming event against WVU and other schools the weekend of Nov. 13.  

Esports is still new not only at Marshall, but all around the world.

Esports, or electronic sports events, feature organized teams playing against each other in various electronic games.

The name of this esports event is Campus Clash and the main game featured will be “Smash Brothers.” 

“Campus clash is going to be a Smash tournament, but there will be other fighting games featured there,” Kev Bryant, the competitive affairs manager with esports at Marshall, said. “But in essence, it’s going to be a live event full venue down in Marco’s in the bottom of the student center.” 

The event will feature Marshall, West Virginia University and Concord among others.

“The idea is we come out and we invite everyone in the state of West Virginia especially the college guys, were thinking WVU, Concord, you name it if they are interested, they can come out and have a good time with us,” Bryant said. “We will have a grand prize at the end, it will be based on entrance and all of that.  

This event has brought newfound excitement to the Marshall esports organization.

“I’m excited I think that this event can be the first major event that Marshall university has in regard to esports, with plans for many more to come and this is something that there is just a lot of interest in the general community,” Bryant said. 

“I am really excited to start to see this program be legitimized,” Caleb John Patrick, president of the Esports Club Association, said. “We have put so much work into it and for our administration and the school’s administration to kind of see that come to fruition for us to finally be able to put ourselves out there with events with broadcast and production. I am really excited to see where we start here and where we can improve.” 

Marshall and WVU have already had some recent competition in the world of esports. 

The two combined to host an esports event during the spring semester of 2021, with games including “Among US,” “Call of Duty” and “Rocket League.” 

However, the Herd believes that it has improved vastly since the event took place. 

“The last time that we played them it was something that we were relatively competitive with, but since then we have put a lot more emphasis on the competitive side of things,” Bryant said. “So, I would imagine that we are going to come out and were going be swinging for sure I am very confident in our team. With our regular in-person tournaments that we have been hosting every week. With just Marshall students, we have been garnering anywhere from 30-50 players. Just playing against each other we have a pretty diverse competition pool and because of that we feel like we’re going to be pretty prepared against the likes of WVU and others.”