“Gaming is for everyone PERIOD!” Has become the motto of the narratives of all the various efforts out of OU’s Esports & Co-Curricular Innovation department (OU ECCI). From the gamer community that compromises the 3,800+ member OU Gaming Club (OUGC) to the 170+ member developments of OU Esports competition, Sooner Esports media efforts, and the OUGC events and venue staff, OU ECCI has always aimed to cover the full spread of opportunities in gaming and esports alike.
Today, OU ECCI announces a partnership with McDonald’s Gaming aimed at supporting their newest event series branded The Sooner Dojo Series (SDS), SDS represents OU ECCI’s efforts to develop year-round public facing programming that requires student payroll, pay to enter events, tangible prize pools, and an emphasis to also bring live production resources online as it matures. In August 2024, ECCI launched SDS with four event series covering Chess, Smash Bros., Fighting Games, and EA’s College Football 2025. These select titles and focuses come from months and years of executing free events to OU’s community and have proven to have consistency and stability to elevate it into open to the public event opportunities.
“Sooner Dojo Series is a step in the right direction for developing events with a well structured foundation and skeleton, enabling a variety of tournaments and events that are desirable not only to the University of Oklahoma’s campus, but the entire public. Gamers want to game, so let’s give them the opportunity while still emphasizing the importance of community! Community and competition are not mutually exclusive.” said Jacob “Oculus” Ross, OU OUGC Community & Labs Manager and OU MBA Graduate Assistant.
The Sooner Dojo Series events join the preexisting seven years of community “in-house” events geared towards free to attend, OU student only, and more casual event types that have been the core energy behind the massive 3,800+ member OUGC. SDS events present the opportunity of leveraging other curricular and experiential development pathways to support the broad landscape within gaming and esports opportunities. While many view “gaming” as just playing the game, those in the space know that logistics, IT, creative media production, marketing, advertising, strategic planning, and organizational leadership are just some of the few skillsets needed to make this industry function and get further stabilized. As part of ECCI’s mission, building upon established areas of study creates a diverse and well rounded base of students who can take what they are learning in the classroom and use ECCI programs as an opportunity to apply what they are learning further building their experiences in preparation of graduation and entrance into the job market.
“The Sooner Dojo Series is for the community, from the community. With SDS, we’re providing gamers a place to play their favorite games, meet gamers from all over, and foster lasting, meaningful connections through gaming. Going forward, our goal is to unify more gamers in the common ground we all share: the love for gaming.” said Ceren “nondragon” Derya, OUGC Community & Labs Event Coordinator and Turkish International OU English Student.
The McDonald’s partnerships ensures The Sooner Dojo Series of events’ intention of further developing student skillsets in event planning and facilitation continue to grow while providing more opportunities for gaming cultures in and outside of OU. It also lays the foundation for future exploration of deeper partnership alignments in competition, media development, and upcoming ECCI initiatives as they become viable. The primary goal of this partnerships is expand McDonald’s ability to reach into gaming communities while supporting ECCI’s goals of catering the same demographics.
Look for immediate perks in preexisting SDS events in the Fall on the calendar at https://ou.edu/esports/events as well upcoming yet to be announced types ranging from new one off LANs, regional tournaments, and more.
About the Esports & Co-Curricular Innovation DepartmentWith development originating in 2016, the OU ECCI Department was founded on the premise of unity through video games with a path to industry focus. It serves as the inclusive home for all gamers from casual to competitive alike.
