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SPORTS
THURSDAY, April 8, 2021
CSUDH BULLETIN
CSUDH Esports Creates International Competition
Photo composite by Darlene Maes
Michael Fogel (left) and Riley Fort (right) are two members of the CSUDH Esports who helped bring the CVL into reality. By Jeremy Gonzalez, Co-Sports Editor | Daniel Diaz, Staff Reporter Imagine a competitive esports league where college students can showcase their skills on the screen and behind the scenes. Similar to a traditional sports league, the esports conference takes place over several months and pits esports teams from different universities in the state and across the country against each other. This resulted in an intense playoff tournament where one team is crowned as the champion. This idea was applied to the PC game Valorant and brought to life as the Collegiate Valorant League by California State University, Dominguez Hills alumnus Riley Fort and graduating senior Michael Fogel, who are both members of the CSUDH Esports program. The league is hosted by The Gamer’s EDU, an organization that advocates for student gamers and gives them a platform to campaign for themselves and each other. Fort graduated last semester with a degree in computer science and became involved with the esports team when he stumbled upon the esports club having a Super Smash
Bros. gaming session in one of the conference rooms on campus. He connected with the club’s academic advisor and general manager, Ruben Caputo, and joined the club, bringing his knowledge of speed running with him. Fogel, a computer science major who will be graduating in May, became involved with the esports team shortly after the pandemic caused the nationwide shutdown last March. He founded the CSUDH Valorant team and now serves as the team’s captain. Although he was happy to be onboard, Fogel said he felt like something was missing in the esports landscape. “Since I was in middle school, I’ve always been in esports, but I saw a hole in college esports,” Fogel said. “Rivalries were not in place like real athletics. I saw the pandemic as an opportunity of keeping all the California State Universities together. I saw it as a way to help kids get into the professional scene.” The first season of the league, which ran from August through December 2020, consisted of various
esports teams from some of the CSU campuses. The instant success from the first season brought attention to the league and other institutions like Oregon State University, Texas A&M University and the University of Houston wanted to join in on the competition. “I always had faith that people would want to play and we would make something happen,” Fogel said. “I had a really good team around me to accomplish that goal. Riley has done amazing production, Ruben has secured great sponsorships. People are reaching out to get in and we felt it was going to spread to more than just California schools.” The new season of the CVL kicked off in February and will run through May 7. It features 40 teams from 30 different campuses across the country, pitting them against each other as they fight to qualify for the finals tournament for their chance to be crowned champions. Due to Valorant being such a new game, released in 2020, different initial bugs and changes affected CVL
streaming. Riot Games, the game’s developer, had yet to even introduce official rules for league play, leaving Fort, Fogel and the CVL to figure it out as they went along. “Trying to keep up with the bugs and compensate for the changes was difficult to do on the fly,” Fort said. One of the bigger problems for Fogel was scheduling and preparing for any changes during the course of the season. “We had a team drop halfway through and we had to fix the schedule for the remainder of the season,” Fogel said. “Now it’s running really well.” As the second season approaches, the CVL looks ahead at what they can do to improve and how far they’ve come. The main focus for season two is to bring in more schools and teams to compete in the league. The ultimate goal of the CVL is to create a place for everyone to be able to play. “We just wanted to bring more schools in,” Fogel said. “We took notes on how to improve our production and we took the offseason to
work on really making our product the best it can be.” Besides participants, the number of employees working on the production of the league has grown exponentially, to the point where they even offer internship opportunities worth college credits. “Last season we were a team of four,” Fort said. “Now, we are offering internships for season 2 in graphic design, content creation, video production and more. They receive credit at their institutions for the internships through the CSU Entertainment Alliance.” The CSU Entertainment Alliance works with 23 campuses, offering grants and internships for career development, networking opportunities, and a “foot in the door” in a competitive field. They also have partnerships with companies like Disney, Netflix, Sony, and Apple, offering other internships and collaboration opportunities. The CVL takes the top talent of the league and offers professional organizations and teams the opportunity to scout some of that top talent, serving as a stepping stone or launching pad between the collegiate and professional levels. Although the second season has been a big success, Fogel and Fort believe there are always ways for the league to be better no matter how far the CVL has come. “Last season we didn’t think of having crazy replays and a 3D model in our introduction,” Fogel said. “There’s always going to be room for improvement. We’re products of the CSU system and it’s cool to put CSUDH and other CSUs on the map.”
Opinion: Tournament of Treatment By Chris Martinez | Layout Assistant After Sedona Price of the Oregon women’s basketball team tweeted out a video of a TikTok she had made showing the equipment offered to the teams and players at the women’s National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, it sparked outrage and criticism over how women’s basketball is looked at by the NCAA. Following the video being posted to social media, another women’s basketball star added to the issue. Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty tweeted out a photo comparing the men’s NCAA tournament’s weight room to those of the women. To many, this was an eye-opener to just how unfair the two tournaments were to their players.
In wake of these photos surfacing and creating an uproar in both professional basketball leagues NBA and WNBA, as well as at the collegiate level. NCAA vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt apologized to the women’s NCAA tournament teams for giving them a subpar weight facility. In an interview with ESPN, Gavitt said, “I apologize to women’s basketball student-athletes, to the coaches, to the women’s basketball committee for dropping the ball, frankly, on the weight-room issue in San Antonio. We’ll get it fixed as soon as possible.” In the wake of Gavitt’s statement, the NCAA took action into adding more and heavier weights, benches,
bikes and rowing machines, offering the athletes and teams more than a simple weight set and a massage table. This is not the first time the NCAA has downplayed the women’s tournament. Another incident was the budget differences where the men’s tournament is budgeted for $28 million while the women’s tournament is only budgeted for $14.5 million. These amounts are drastically different due to the revenue the men generate which is $864.6 million compared to the women who monetarily lose the NCAA $2.8 million.” The men’s tournament in turn makes the women’s tournament possible to be held. Even though the men’s tournament supplies the funds
Photo by Ben Hershey via Unsplash
Stanford Cardinals won the 2021 NCAA womens Championship 54 - 53 over Arizona. necessary for the women to hold a tournament, that does not mean the women should have less adequate facilities and equipment given to them. The more other athletes and
professionals speak up for their athletic counterparts, the more awareness and equality they would bring to a sport that has always been cast a shadow over.