Andrew MacBeath arrived at Newhouse ready to pursue his master’s degree in broadcast & digital journalism on the sports media and communications track. With so many resources at his disposal, he knew that anything was possible.
So, he decided to pursue a side project on top of his classwork, Syracuse on Fan Nation and WAER. MacBeath created the first ever Esports series for the Newhouse Sports Media Center.
“I got into esports when I got into the first person shooter genre, which started around 2016, particularly with the game Overwatch” MacBeath said of his introduction to esports. “That game got a massive fanbase and actually started a localized league with teams based in different cities around the world. I became a Boston Uprising fan.”
MacBeath, a Boston native, continued to follow the Overwatch leagues for the next few years. The leagues eventually died off, something he attributes to the release of other games and a scandal that rocked the company behind Overwatch.
However, those other games quickly gained traction. MacBeath mentioned Valorant, Fortnite and updated versions of Call of Duty, among others. Now, those games have led to the formation of leagues around the world that draw audiences numbering in the thousands to live competitions.
“From that moment on, I wanted to follow not just the teams, but the players and the games more closely,” he said. “It just turned from a hobby to teams that I legitimately root for along with my traditional sports teams that I like.”
MacBeath knew that he wanted to contribute to the Newhouse Sports Media Center in some way. His love for esports had grown in the summer leading up to his arrival at Newhouse, and the idea came about when he noticed that at Newhouse, there was a focus on the growing sport, including a future Esports Communications and Management major with the Newhouse School.
“I know that it is growing and it’s not mainstream yet,” MacBeath acknowledged. “But I really wanted to put the first little building block in to make it become mainstream or at least something that can be talked about in the Newhouse Sports Media Center for years to come.”
From there, the idea became more developed, and in collaboration with Newhouse Sports Media Center Director Olivia Stomski and Television, Radio and Film professor, Jordan Kligerman, MacBeath made it happen.
“I wrote, shot, produced, edited, directed, all of that mostly by myself,” he explained. “Just me, talking to a camera, talking about esports. I knew that if I could educate people about esports, I knew that I could also learn, myself, more about the activity that I love to watch.”
He noted that at times, it was difficult to balance his esports series with classwork and other organizations he was producing content for. On top of his esports series and schoolwork, MacBeath works as a web editor for both NCC News and WAER and is a lacrosse beat reporter for Syracuse on Fan Nation.
It took up a lot of time and it was difficult to maintain a consistent upload schedule, but it was definitely something that I grew with,” MacBeath said of the challenges he faced. “Though it isn’t the major thing that Newhouse is known for, I definitely wanted to use that as a way to set myself apart from the crowd at Newhouse.”
And set himself apart he did. MacBeath published 18 esports updates over the course of the school year, four of which he co-hosted with his classmate, Sammy St. Jean. All of the esports updates are available to view on the Newhouse Sports Media Center YouTube channel.
While his time at Newhouse may be coming to a close, MacBeath wants future students to use his work as a springboard. Earlier this year, Syracuse University announced that beginning in fall 2024, a major in Esports Communications and Management will be offered through a partnership between Newhouse and Falk. Three tracks will be offered to participating students: Esports Business Management, Esports Communications and Esports Media and Design.
“What I hope for this major is that people will instead of seeing esports as a hobby, see it as an industry,” MacBeath said, noting his enthusiasm for what the first-of-its-kind major can do for the esports scene. “I’d like esports to eventually become talked about as more than a side hobby.”
Outside the new major, he hopes that his show can continue, even if he’s not the one doing it. He hopes that he can leave the series in a spot where another student can pick it up in the future.
MacBeath is grateful for the opportunity to do the show, but he’s just as grateful for what the show has done for him.
“We see sports stories with athletes that are being told through the games they play. You have stories like those in esports that people do not know about and go entirely unnoticed,” he said, adding how it’s meant so much to him to tell those stories and make people aware of the importance of esports to so many.
MacBeath has now moved onto his next chapter as a reporter at WHAM in Rochester, NY. MacBeath summed up his experience with esports at Newhouse quite simply:
“I didn’t realize just how much esports really meant to me until I started making this series,” he shared. It means so much to people and you have no idea how much it means to people across the world. I really hope people can see that one day.”