Wildcat ESports had their first official LAN Party of the semester this past Sunday on the third floor of Mabee Business Building.

At the LAN Party, they had different video game consoles that members of the group brought.

“We played a lot of games, we had a ton of different systems from computers to Nintendo consoles,” said Matthew Smetzer, senior digital entertainment technology major from San Antonio.

Esports is a growing trend  in which people form teams to play video games against other teams around the world.

According to ESPN, Power 5 college conferences are starting to form their own teams to have yearly conference tournaments.

Fortune.com states Mark Cuban has invested around 7 million dollars in a startup esports gambling company called Unikrn which allows people to gamble on online video game tournaments. He also started his own esports team called Mavs Gaming.

“Esports effectively stands for electronic sports, and it’s a new kind of sports that has taken off in recent years,” said Ryan Case, senior digital entertainment technology major from Palestine. “It’s competitive gaming where teams will form more professional based teams and what not and fight each other.”

Wildcat E-Sports is part of an esports group called TeSPA (Texas Electronic Sports Association). There are other colleges in Texas that are also part of this group. It costs $15  to join through ACU.

Jessica Wininger, senior digital entertainment technology major from Fort Worth said she hopes that this club can help bring video game fans together.

“Mostly we just want to reach out to anyone who’s interested in joining this community,” Wininger said. “Anyone who’s interested in playing video games with other like minded people for a few hours every once in a while.”

To learn more about this group and what they do, show up to one of their other LAN Parties this semester or one of their TeSPA events.