OU Esports Spring 2023 Report Card & New Year Updates

*Unlike previous report cards this edition will be shortened on the GPA front to make some space for a preview of the upcoming 2023-2024 school year. 

In the ’22-’23 school year we gained keys to our first ever dedicated spaces housed in Cross Village Building B. This year we will use these spaces split in half for development and community with the development side launching as a preview to Summer 2024 renovations. The community side will launch later this school year.

• This closeout to this past year ended on an extremely high note as our Board of Regents approved our ability to renovate a future space for the development needs of Esports & Co-Curricular Innovation but also for our intended lab space that will cater to the entire student, staff, faculty, and fan basis of the university.
• Every year we review all of our policies and workflows to apply changes from lessons learned for the new year. This year resulted in a massive overhaul of the fundamental abilities and responsibilities of all of our intercollegiate esports teams. This year resulted in outlining the ability for any of our teams to gain “varsity” status, fundraise, and stage for the future.
• This upcoming school year will result in the first ever student employees of OU ECCI in both graduate assistants and undergrad work. We’ll be announcing our first two GAs right before school starts. It will also start the process of slowly adding in students on the ramp up to the facility renovation in Summer 2024 as they prepare to open a 7 day a week operational facility. This will kick off a fundraising campaign for namesakes and branding right in between the football and softball stadiums on and facing Jenkins Ave. home of over 40K+ foot traffic every home football game.
• Last year we added FC(previously known as FIFA), iRacing(now SIM Racing), and Splatoon3. With the crazy lineup of fighting games over the next school year in Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and Mortal Kombat 1, we will be looking into formal collegiate FGC participation.
• We announced a partnership with FitGMR that will assist with a few more partnerships we can’t announce yet. These will be focused on all things wellness elevation and will help us in being able to articulate the health related considerations of our programs for documentation and research.
• Lastly, we now have a philanthropic consistent collaboration we will share more about in August, but we are working with the Children’s Hospital in OKC to support and help the morale of children in their care. Right now this takes the form of a bi-weekly Thursday afternoon visit where we play games with kids. Look for the upcoming article for more details in August.

This list is a very top level update while still providing the core update on how our students are doing academically. This will be our most transformative year as we enter our 7th year of intentional development in November. We hope you all are having a great Summer and get ready for an exciting new year!

– Director Moog, OU Esports & Co-Curricular Innovation, The University of Oklahoma

Before we dive into the numbers and all the positive energy we want to make sure we are being transparent. While these program averages are amazing, students sometimes do miss the mark and often have to step away from our program due to lack of focus on their academic goals and primary purpose for being at OU. We take their academic endeavors seriously and are always our #1 priority over performance and participation. However, we also know that separating students away from things like this can be demoralizing and further push them down the path of failure. As we keep active tabs on all of our students in programs we actively work with them to ensure their balance and needs are met. From mental health concerns and academic performance to social time and fellowship we continuously aim to promote a culture of camaraderie and scholarly achievement in tandem with our success in development. These numbers reflect all students in programs regardless of being academically eligible or on probation as they reprioritize their focus.

– Director Moog