The Long Game

Most academic esports programs feel stable. New programs keep opening, scholarship dollars keep growing, and the headlines are mostly good news.

So why did the field just record its first net decrease in collegiate programs?

The Long Game, the new strategic report from the Next Gen Esports Leadership Lab powered by SHI and Intel, brings together 47 administrators, faculty, coaches, students, and industry leaders to answer the question the field has been putting off: not how to launch an esports program, but how to make one last.

Key Insights

• Stability isn’t sustainability. 78% of programs feel secure heading into the next budget cycle — yet the field just recorded its first-ever net decrease in collegiate programs. Most stability rests on conditions that can change overnight.
• The transactional model has already failed. The median esports sponsorship is just $2,000, and 76% of programs can’t raise outside funds at all. Industry has been funding a workforce pipeline as if it were advertising.
• Most programs are one departure from being cut. Only 21% of leaders said their program would survive their own exit intact. The fix is distribution — enough champions across the institution that no single departure can end the program.

The bottom line: The work of launching academic esports programs is largely done; the work of making them last has barely begun — and The Long Game lays out what that work requires.