Greg C. Garland, CEO of Phillips 66, and Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby present the Big 12 Basketball Tournament trophy to Iowa State in 2017. Is this the future of esports? (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
The Big 12 Conference’s seventh forum on the state of college athletics later this month is set to address the growth of esports on campuses. The meeting will be at The Statler Hotel in Dallas on May 23, and, of course, will be streamed live on Twitch.
“When we began our Forum series, it was the goal to use its town-hall style format to address relevant topics associated with intercollegiate athletics,” said Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby in a statement. “The meteoric rise of esports is very real on our campuses. Universities are grappling to find its proper place as a co-curricular activity, with a wide-range of administrative model options available. I look forward to discussing whether it is in fact sport or entertainment, and if an administrative intersection within the intercollegiate athletic model exists.”
The live stream, which will be on both the conference’s website and Stadium’s Twitch channel, will also feature a show match between two collegiate esports teams. (Stadium is a multi-platform sports streaming network that launched last June.) As well as Bowlsby, panelists will include Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and the NBA franchise’s Mavs Gaming NBA 2K team, and A.J. Dimick, director of esports at the University of Utah. Utes Esports is the first varsity esports program at a Power Five conference school.
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