Talking College-based Esports Clubs With Brendon Ramdeholl
By Jesse Collins ·
Aside from the more physical shorts, the University of Georgia has been focusing on esports as of late. With their event, Athens Online, they are one of the biggest college esports teams in the entire southeast.
Colleges come together for the more common sports on a normal basis, but what about esports? I recently had a chance to sit down with Brendon Ramdeholl, the External PR Officer for Esports at the University of Georgia. With the advent of student turnout for competitive gaming, UGA is going all in. Hosting a large event in Athens, GA, aptly named Athens Online, UGA has become a powerhouse in the southeast competitive scene.
Brendon, a student at UGA himself, takes his job with pride. “Essentially, my job is to get sponsors for our events and communicate with other esports clubs, both in- and out-of-state.”
He explained a little more about how their club works, in comparison to other clubs that exists at some of the colleges out there. “Our club has about 400 members. We have monthly meetings and we aim to have two events a month, whether it's a LAN tournament or going out to eat. Our biggest event is Athens Online, which is the largest intercollegiate LAN event in the southeast. We hold tournaments for games like CS:GO, Overwatch, and League of Legends, as well as some console games, over two days. This coming year it will be March 3rd and 4th, 2018. We aim to have a larger sponsor presence this year. So, we are working on acquiring booths for our sponsors for them to demo products at the event. Last year, we had over 600 people attend.”
Last year, prize contributions and sponsors at Athens Online ranged from DXRacer, Nvidia, DreamHack, Atlanta Momocon, Razer, and UMG. Brendon was excited that this coming year will, additionally, have Gigabyte, Corsair, and multiple others. This helps them keep the prizes similar between different events.
Speaking of prizes, he continued to explain the difference in PC and Console based prizes. Cash prizes are only given for the events with console games. But, PC gamers get some of nicer physical prizes, such as DXRacer chairs, Razer peripherals, and even full Nvidia graphics cards.
It's not the size that matters
Brendon told me to not count out their smaller events, though. They’re fierce and just as strong. “The smaller events were competitive too. We had cash prizes for Street Fighter V, along with a small pot bonus for Smash 4 and Melee. We aim to have more casual tournaments, on the side, this coming year, for people who get knocked out early in the competitive side. But, the details on all of that are still being worked on.
I asked him a little more about himself and his personal future goals, since he’s still in College, as well as what the future holds for the UGA competitive scene. “My goal is to get a marketing position within the gaming and esports industries, post-graduation. I'd love to move to California and I already have a lot friends doing exactly that right now over there,” he explained. “As for the future of our club, we aim to partner with the school to get more support and funding for our events and work on getting a gaming arena built here. We currently have the best CS:GO team in the southeast, named the UGA Esports CSGO A Team. We would just love to be able to support our pro teams more.”
Check out Athens Online, which will take place March 3 - 4, on their Facebook event. For more interviews, check out our interview with Gilbert "Punisher" Matos or read about the time that Sonic Fox kicked my ass at games.