Inaugural Esports Egg Bowl Presents Perfect Mashup of Sports and Technology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=317FcZ_uxX0

The Ole Miss and Mississippi State rivalry came to Oxford sooner than its scheduled Nov. 22 meet up at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Fans of the rival teams had the opportunity to virtually battle it out at the Esports Egg Bowl Saturday, Oct. 13.

For the first time ever video gamers from Ole Miss and Mississippi State competed in a variety of video games on different platforms. This electronic video game competition allowed students to embrace their gaming, sports, and technology skills while bringing attention to the Esport teams.

“One thing that spurred this is the aspect of watching how technology has evolved,” said Ole Miss’ Chief Information Officer, Nishanth Rodrigues. “We have taken academia online. Academia was only in the classroom and then it went online. Athletics was only on a field and only in an arena and now that’s going online as well.”

President of Mississippi State Esports, Jay Deshong, said he never expected the event to happen so soon.

“This was five years down the road. This wasn’t something that was next year or the year after. It’s hard to put into words how good it feels for something like this to happen,” he said.

Although Esports are available for anyone, it takes a high level of skill to play at the collegiate or professional level.

“The mechanical skill it takes to play at this level is insane,” Deshong said. “Nobody could sit down and just do what we do on the fly.”

The event was live streamed for the video platform Twitch.

Contributed by broadcast journalism students Amanda Haley and Madison Scarpino