MAAC to Host NBA2K Challenge for Basketball Student-Athlete Graduates

By: Kolby Castillo

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It is without doubt that creativity has increased since the shutdown due to the pandemic. Athletic Conferences, sports teams, athletic departments, and players have been coming up with various ways to keep people engaged. We have seen schools host virtual tailgates to virtual commencements. 

It was announced today that the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) will be hosting an online NBA2K Challenge for the graduating Men's and Women's Basketball seniors from their conference schools. These seniors are outside of the scope of the NCAA eligibility and are going off to other careers allowing the MAAC to host this challenge for them. The seniors that have graduated this school year are the only ones eligible to enter. Each school in the conference will choose representatives, limiting the challenge to 16 players total. The NBA2K challenge will be live on Twitch next Friday and Saturday. The winner will get a $1000 and the runner up will get $500. 

Kiernan Ensor is the Esports Coordinator for the MAAC Conference. He joined me on a call to share with me the potential of what this challenge and Esports can be. "We even see this property growing, just how they do the three versus three basketball competition at the Final Four. It always has been a key facet for us, to continuously provide opportunities to the student-athletes even when outside of their athletic scope."

This provides a chance for exposure for conference, school, and individuals. Innovation and creativity is being accelerated. This challenge provides a way for the schools to keep alumni engaged and I cannot recall any other college athletic conference doing this for former student-athletes. 

Kiernan Ensor, "We are a college basketball conference primarily. The average age of our fan is anywhere in between 56 to 58. The average Esports fan is 26 years old. How do we bridge that divide? How do we sustainably keep a fan base growing? How do you bring young people into that brand? You have to attract them. Esports will be an attractive lure that will cross promote MAAC's brand, schools brand, and hopefully bring in people down the road to a basketball game."

In my opinion this challenge is a little glimpse of what the future of college athletics and Esports will look like. Esports is continuing to grow and would not be smart to ignore it. Kids are growing up with Esports being as normal as the other sports. I look forward to seeing the challenge live next week Friday and Saturday. How many schools will host a similar event? 
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