VIRGINIA BEACH (WTKR) — Brandon Kwon's first year at Virginia Wesleyan was also the first time the school was offering a sanctioned Esports team.
When Kwon signed up, it was clear just how much growing the program had to do.
"Our Rocket League was just three people at the time," Kwon said. "Since then, it's grown to points where we can host events like this."
The event Kwon referenced was this weekend's Collision on the Coast hosted at TowneBank Arena. The Marlins started the Rocket League tournament last year and immediately found success.
This year's edition saw 16 teams from states as far away as Texas and Florida come to the school to compete in the two day event.
"It was quite the shock last year when we held the first one. I remember going back to my room looking over the streaming numbers thinking we'd get 50 to 100 viewers," said Kwon, who's now VWU's Rocket League head coach. "When I saw we had 1,500 to 2,000 viewers I just thought, 'Wow, this is insane.'"
Collision on the Coast goes beyond just setting up a console to a projection screen. Teams play on stages in front bleachers filled with players and spectators while broadcasters commentate on the game on a Twitch stream.
This year's edition saw nearly 1,500 viewers join to watch the games.
"Definitely a lot behind the scenes," said Hailey Schumacher, the school's assistant director for Esports. "There are things that go into marketing, setting up Twitch streams, broadcast settings. Even reaching out to teams and getting teams to come, it's been a lot of hard work to get this event running."
Hosting Collision is quite the journey from a team that had roughly 15 players when it first started. The team now has nearly 50 members competing in Rocket League, League of Legends, Fortnite, and Overwatch.
It's a labor of love the for the program's leaders, who either came through as players while they were students or helped build the team from its inception.
"We want it to feel very family friendly," said Glenn Johnson, director of VWU Esports. "We want to be able to give them support and the best way to do that is to have that family-like environment. It really spawns from that and it just grows."
"We had some young viewers in our stands," Schumacher said. "Just like little kids and seeing them get so excited and passionate just like I did when I was a kid, it touches my heart."
Lubbock Christian University ultimately took the top spot in the tournament this year, beating the University of Central Florida in the finale.
