What is Fresno State esports?
Fresno State Esports prides itself on being more than just a competitive gaming organization, but a community of like-minded individuals that are widely diverse.
“Esports is definitely one of those programs where it’s like you can get to see your full potential in a collegiate competitive setting,” said Karsten Anderson, president of the Fresno State VALORANT program.
Fresno State Esports plans their tryouts on a case-by-case basis, ranging from the end of fall semester to the beginning of spring. For the 2025 semester, tryouts will be announced at the end of December. Typically, everyone trying out will play two to three days’ worth of games or two to three games in a day.
“We’ll watch the replays and look over the stats of everything and also see who can fit in roles together, what players played well together, stuff like that and we’ll place them accordingly,” Anderson said.
After a couple of days or the day after tryouts, the coaches and students in leadership roles will contact the players to tell them if they made any teams.
Technical parts of esports
Spencer Beair, the broadcast and media director for Fresno State Esports, oversees all of the esports Twitch streams, distributes schedules out to the technicians, and much more.
Esports uses a platform called Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) for streaming on Twitch. Beair receives on-screen graphics and overlays from the PR team, who help create different overlays and any changes needed for game days, so that they can remain up to date.
“I mean they’re little things, but they’re things that make your program look more professional and they’re just things that I had to do a lot during the first part of the semester,” Beair said.
However, now that Beair has a team of technicians to assist him behind the scenes, there is a lot less work for him to do.
“My position has kind of went from being ‘I do all the stuff’ to ‘I found people to do stuff’ and then I tell them and explain to them and help them know how to do things,” Beair said.
The role of broadcast and media director involves being on-camera talent, controlling the in-game camera, and some minor graphic design for small details. Beair plays a key role in telling each team’s stories through live commentary, marketing, and co-hosting esports events which goes hand-in-hand with his broadcast journalism major.
“I mean what I learn in class directly impacts what I do in my life and my work,” Beair said. “Everything that I learned there [Bulldog Vision] contributes directly to the production quality at Fresno State Esports.”
Bulldog Vision is the department at Fresno State that handles the live production of all of the sports games and streams most of the esports games to the Mountain West network.
Broadcasting for esports is crucial, but it has to remain interesting to keep the viewers watching.
“That’s the challenge we face on a daily basis, on a week-to-week basis and attracting Twitch viewers and it’s the reason why we do so much marketing,” Beair said.
Jacob Gutierrez, a student leader at Fresno State Esports, oversees the four major teams within the esports arena including VALORANT, League of Legends, Rocket League and Overwatch.
“I basically tell our coaches or our team captains when to have tryouts and I also promote the tryouts on our different social media platforms,” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez also handles the majority of the scheduling, posting, graphic design, branding and marketing of the esports teams.
“When it comes to rules within our gaming arena which is in University Student Union (USU) lower level in the Bulldog Bowl area, I am the one that kind of makes the rules for how things should be organized,” Gutierrez said.
About the Valorant team
VALORANT is a team-based first-person shooter, where each player has four roles to choose from: Duelist, Initiator, Sentinel, and Controller.
Fresno State Esports’ VALORANT club consists of two teams, Fresno State Red and Fresno State Blue that are remotely on the same level when it comes to skill, “Typically, we do have a varsity and JV set up, but this semester is a bit different,” said Karsten Anderson, president of the VALORANT club.
The VALORANT club also has a women’s and marginalized gendered team called VALORANT Iris, which is led by Ashley Cortez who is the team manager for the under-represented group, Anderson said.
What it’s like coaching for collegiate VALORANT
Anderson is in charge of all logistics on the Fresno State Red team, but it wasn’t always like that.
“So, for me, I originally tried out for the Fresno State VALORANT team, I want to say fall of 2022 and I had some family stuff come up, so I had to back away from that,” Anderson said.
He tried out again for the Fall 2023 semester, made the team, and eventually a leadership position opened up.
He added that he wanted to do something different with the program that hadn’t been done.
“So, I had end-of-spring tryouts, so we could use the summer for the first time, which the program hasn’t done before, to help start building up team chemistry and practicing and stuff like that,” Anderson said.
He had the team go out for team bonding at an escape room, had the team over at his house and they got Canes catered and went swimming to build more of a bond.
“When you look at other sports, that’s what they do,” Anderson said. “They have team bonding and all of that goes a long way.”
Anderson said he is ranked 600th in North America and the next best player on the team is ranked 3000th.
VALORANT is all about micro-adjustments, or micro-plays where the player must focus on small precise movements of the mouse, “It might be like one guy stood five feet to the left of the place he shouldn’t have been standing,” Anderson said. “That’s where I can see myself able to help a lot more as a coach.”
Anderson shared that VALORANT is split into two ideas: the game sense and the actual ability.
“Game sense is like a game of chess,” Anderson said. “It’s almost more like a psychological perspective at the game where you’re thinking a step ahead of the enemy player.”
Anderson can come in during a match as a coach and help by advising what to do next time to improve the teammates performance.
“It’s those little things that you do that do actually have a big impact in the game,” Anderson said.
Team IRIS
Team Iris is a team of marginalized genders that competes in the National Esports Collegiate Conference (NECC) on Mondays. They get together to talk about team compositions with subjects of what roles each player should take on and how the team can do better each practice.
When it comes to women in esports, the importance of growth in numbers is key for the team because you don’t see very many women or nonbinary people who play.
“The whole thing about Iris is that we are trying to grow in gaming and kind of put women, non-binary people out there,” said Darian Cervelli, captain and in-game leader (IGL) of Iris.
Most women in the esports gaming community get harassed or judged playing games and people are in their chats making fun of them for playing games.
Women and non-binary encouragement are important factors the team focuses on to grow their roster.
“I try to talk about being on the esports team as often as I can, just so that if they kind of resonate with what I have to say, they’ll go in and also try to join the team,” Cervelli said.
Cervelli said that the members of Iris are not her teammates but rather people she holds near and dear to her.
“I’d like to think of my teammates as not only as my teammates, but my friends and my sort of family and so I try my hardest to make sure that they feel included and that their words with what they want to be said are heard,” Cervelli said.
The future of esports
The chance of creating more teams for specific games can be a possibility, but a challenge at that.
“So, the issue with that is, yes, there are teams that I would like to create, but from a management standpoint, it gets more and more difficult to keep things efficient the more teams that you add,” Beair said.
According to Gutierrez, Fresno State Esports currently has about 60 members with at least seven teams, including JV teams.
“That in itself is already like a challenge, mostly because with communication, you know you tell someone one thing, but it can still fall through the thread,” Gutierrez said.
Starting next semester, the Chess Club will be able to stream their games as well on Saturdays with the help of the broadcasters at Fresno State Esports.
“The opportunity and accessibility that are provided to esports players and people that are involved with esports is unparalleled,” said Beair.
