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The University of North Texas has announced the creation of a $200,000 esports facility, “The Nest” which will open on August 30.
The facility, embedded in the university’s Media Library, has fifteen top-spec computers with several esports titles installed. These can be used by the students to play recreationally or practice for competitions. The computers can also be used for students looking to harness the power of the computers for multimedia work or game design.
“What we have now has been our vision from the beginning, but it happened so much sooner than we could have imagined,” commented Diane Robson, media librarian and faculty chair for UNT’s esports club, talking to the Dallas Observer
Three university organisations teamed up to create The Nest: recreational sports, the media library and student services.
“For me, it’s literally learning something from the ground up. It’s a whole new language,” Laurie Kline, Director of Recreational Sports, said to the Dallas Observer.
“I watched an entire weekend of League of Legends tournaments on ESPN 3, and it made no sense to me. It’s amazing, exciting and frankly overwhelming.”
Collegiate esports is becoming a bigger and bigger deal in the US and this facility, the equivalent of a sports training area, is likely to be the first of many that we see. College tournaments are regularly run across multiple games, with a strong university level scene that hasn’t been duplicated in the United Kingdom just yet.
