CCNY Esports Club Boosts Its Profile

HAMILTON HEIGHTS, Harlem, NY

The Esports Club at The City College of New York (CCNY) aims to promote the club and increase interest in Esports on campus. “We also want to advertise our gaming pathways, the waffle games, and our CUNY Esports League,” said the club secretary, Sohani Rahman, a digital design major with a user interface and user experience concentration. In early April, the club made its first big push for visibility during a Valorant tournament at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The tournament organizer, Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Esports, featured the club in a video that included interviews with players at the event. Although the team did not perform well at the tournament and was unable to play on the main stage, they compiled enough clips to create a video for their social media accounts.

The club was founded towards the end of 2016, initially focusing on fans of the popular competitive strategy game League of Legends. This continued until 2019, when it officially became an esports-focused club sanctioned by CCNY Student Life and Development. That gave it credibility as a serious club and sport. The club supports 35 games, and active members regularly play and compete in games like League of Legends, Valorant, Marvel Rivals, Rainbow Six Siege, osu!, and Overwatch 2.

The club helps gamers feel connected to others. Computer science major Kenneth Wong, almost gave up gaming. “I was really in the mindset of, Oh, at some point, I  have to give up games because I don’t know if people will be interested in games anymore, and so being here reminded me that, nah, people like games. It feels nice to know that kind of thing, that I’m not alone,” he said.

Strategy Session at CCNY Esports Club

Club president Alex Gibson-Daley, an engineering major and journalism minor, pushed the club to promote itself. They set up a TikTok page and an Instagram account, hosted live streams on their Twitch channel, and organized events through the club’s Discord. “Our main inspiration to create a TikTok and Instagram page was to have more reach with our club, as other esports organizations have a notable social media presence, so it makes sense for us to follow suit and establish ourselves,” Daley said.

Before the semester ends, the club will head to the Battle of the Boroughs and the CUNY League Finals, hosted at the OS NYC Gaming Cafe downtown. “I just hope these events give us a lot more visibility and encourage the members in the Esports Club to look into joining teams and playing, because it can be pretty cool to do so,” Wong said.