HOW THIS CAME TO BE
This whole month we are dedicating our programming and any fundraising to Extra Life. Extra Life unites thousands of gamers around the world to play games in support of their local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. Since its inception in 2008, Extra Life has raised more than $40 million for sick and injured kids. We kicked it off this past weekend with a collaborative event with The Tom Love Innovation Hub by hosting a 24-hour stream and putting on programming for the public. This included mini-tournaments in Rocket League, Hearthstone, League of Legends, and Overwatch while also having board games, DND sessions, and other casual games up and available for all attendees. At the end of our stream, we had a student challenge the community for bits in exchange for him shaving his head. We concluded the stream with the announcement for Bedlam grudge matches in the name of charity. If you’d like to learn more about extra life and how you can contribute to our fundraising please check out donation page HERE. At the conclusion of the event, we had just surpassed $2.7K generated for the Children’s Miracle Network.
Several weeks ago our Super Smash Brother’s community brought up that they were going to host OSU for matches on November 9th. We used this as a means to reach out to the student president of Gamers at Oklahoma State University and see what other energies they’d be up for sending to host our own version of the bedlam tradition. Through the two universities gaming and esports development energies, we are both fielding teams in Smash Melee, Smash Wii U, Hearthstone, Rocket League, League of Legends, and Overwatch.
HELP US HELP KIDS!
Before we go into programming and what this event means, I want to take a moment and extend the opportunity for you to continue to contribute to our fundraiser for the Children’s Miracle Network. With the permission of the student president of Gamers of OSU, we are taking this week’s donations and submitting a joint donation versus any sort of profitability or revenue generation from the potential of an event like this. Additionally, we had an extremely talented artist by the name of JD produce this amazing painting of Overwatch’s Widowmaker during Saturday’s Extra Life event at the iHub. We are putting it up for auction immediately with 3 ways to bid. The first way is through the Extra life link above itself. Please add the comment “Widowmaker” to the comments of your donation and it cannot be anonymous. The second way is through bit donations on our twitch channel HERE. The third way is in person at the Bedlam event (Students only). We will announce the winner around 10 PM before our final matches for the night. The goal for this painting is $200+ and if it hits the $200 mark I will personally have it framed for the winner on my own dime. Help us help kids! Support our efforts and help us grow on all fronts!
Artist JD holding his freshly painted Widowmaker. He has donated this painting to help raise funds for Extra Life using his own unique talents. GET BIDDING!
THE MAIN EVENT!
When: November 9, 2018, @ 3PM-Midnight
Where: Cross, 1691 Asp Avenue, Norman, OK 73019
Streamed: HERE
Cost: Free to OU, OSU students. All other attendees are welcome but we hope you will contribute at least $5 to Extra Life HERE. We are scoping this for student attendance though as a priority.
Special Thanks: Cross (OU’s newest living space), The One U Store, Extra Life Charities, and all of the students at OU for hosting our Oklahomies from Oklahoma State University.
What do you think? Let’s galvanize the preexisting energies on to an all-new stage. Want to see more programming ramping up collegiate esports in the region? Let us know!
THE NIGHTS AGENDA
Schedule for the evening:
3PM – Doors Open
3:20PM – Stream starts with an introduction and overview from the student presidents from each school.
4PM – Super Smash Melee Crew Battle 5v5
5PM – Smash Wii U Crew Battle 5v5
6PM – Hearthstone 3v3
7PM – Rocket League 3v3
8PM – League of Legends 5v5
10PM – Overwatch 6v6
Midnight – Closing statement from leadership.
With all things anticipate some matches to be accelerated or delayed but we are trying our best to streamline the process and itinerary to make this a fun pleasurable event for everyone in attendance and online as well.
There are several reasons for this event to take place outside of bringing new relevant forms of entertainment and competition to the forefront of not only the University of Oklahoma but also the entire region. We are 100% interested in elevating not only ourselves and OU but also our peers at other universities across the state and region. All refs, shoutcasters, and programmers are either OU or OSU students, OU or OSU alumni, or OU employees. Through generous donations of hardware and space utilization we have a $0 operating cost for this event aside from our time. This shows the power of gaming and esports on university campuses and we will showcase what this all looks like. We hope you tune in or come to support your teams and these energies as we ramp up programming across the board.
THE FUTURE!!
The future is bright on this topic and to ensure the success of our endeavors The Esports Association at The University of Oklahoma is actively working with and looking for peers at other universities to collaborate and work with to develop unique collaborations and opportunities to elevate all of us. Here is a list of schools in our region we are directly working with to start building the scene in the collegiate space and more.
OSU – Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK
UCO – University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK
RSU – Rogers State University, Claremore, OK (THE FIRST OFFICIALLY ENDORSED ESPORTS COLLEGIATE PROGRAM IN THE STATE! GET IT!)
TU – University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK
UNT – University of North Texas, Denton, TX
UTD – University of Texas At Dallas, Richardson, TX
TXWES – Texas Wesleyan University, Fort Worth, TX
UARK – University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR
