We’re excited to announce a new partnership with the Electronic Gaming Federation (EGF) as part of our mission to bring timely and compelling video-based cases from ground-breaking companies into the classroom. Headquartered in New York City, EGF is a collegiate esports development and media company that works with students and administrators throughout the country to build the esports ecosystem for the next generation.

EGF was founded in 2013 as a for-profit recognizing body for high school and collegiate esports. To date, EGF has won Techstars NYC funding, and established partnerships to develop esports infrastructure with 65 universities. Its goal is to serve the 500 million core gamers and 55 million gaming viewers worldwide by: 

• Establishing an NCAA equivalent for esports, potentially including 4,600 colleges and 2,400 non-degree gaming institutions.

• Building an open and friendly competitive community.

• Furthering an esports industry through media broadcasting and technology development.

We’re thrilled to launch this partnership as both official and available to Real Time Cases users teaching courses in Management, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship. We have a total of four video-based case studies involving EGF, as outlined below.

• Creating Scholastic esports Leagues: Driving every decision at the Electronic Gaming Federation is the fact that the collegiate esports market is underdeveloped. As EGF races to build the market upon which they stand, they run into the issue that their consumers—the administrators making purchasing decisions around membership to EGF’s leagues—may not have any understanding of esports, nor an awareness of its presence amongst students on campus. Speaking to the value esports can bring to a university requires tangible evidence of student interest, but time is of the essence as the market continues to grow. What can EGF do to facilitate larger engagement for a better appeal to administrators in order to establish a formal program with EGF’s help?

Next, it is important to note that the intention for the three cases to follow is that while they could be adopted individually, they may also be used in a bundle for a comprehensive, semester-long, capstone-type project. 

Each of the Case Prompt videos begins with the section, A Dynamic Business Model: Organizing Ops to Meet Needs.

• Developing the Scholastic esports Ecosystem: Platform and Infrastructure: EGF provides an opportunity for universities to reap some of the same benefits they see with traditional sports through the creation of formalized esports programs. With fewer than 100 universities in the U.S. boasting varsity esports programs, the industry is well underdeveloped. This leaves EGF open to great risk, given the point at which they’ve entered the market. However, if they are successful in facilitating program development and buy-in, EGF stands to solidify its position as the NCAA of esports. EGF has made the leap, but can they build the market before falling flat?

• Developing the Scholastic esports Ecosystem: League Governance: EGF is putting all of its energy into developing the market with their services to high schools and colleges to create esports programs. This infrastructure is the foundation of what EGF hopes to accomplish; however, the core and longevity of EGF depends not only on market capture, but also sustained league governance. With slow movement toward regulation in the professional esports arena, the burden weighs heavy with an ethical responsibility to the students and programs served. Collegiate esports needs a central governing body, but on what terms?

• Developing the Scholastic esports Ecosystem: Media: EGF’s Media division plays a significant role in building the ecosystem and to push esports further into the mainstream. It provides a source of recognition for EGF and its university members. In response to scale, it has become a huge part of EGF’s educational initiative to get students involved in the esports industry outside of gameplay by exposing them to potential careers, thus reinforcing the state of the industry. While revenue from advertisements and sponsorships may be a long-term goal, building the right foundation could dictate the ultimate potential of opportunity. How can EGF balance competing interests to build a better system?  

As you will see upon further review, the cases delve deep into practical studies of Unique Value Proposition, Blue Ocean Strategy, ROI, Product Design, Ethics, Scale, Lean Six Sigma, and more. Through this collaboration with EGF, we aim to prepare tomorrow’s leaders with today’s challenges.

About Real Time Cases

Real Time Cases’ mission is to serve as the bridge between the higher education classroom and the professional world. Real Time Cases delivers engaging video-based activities that make it easier for educators to let students address real problems facing relevant companies in the moment, as they are happening. With EGF’s rapid expansion and the opportunity for students to make an impact in their business, the partnership between Real Time Cases and EGF could not be a better fit for our customers. This is also a very exciting occasion as EGF is added to our list of current partners, including Team Liquid, KIND, CustomInk, WeddingWire, and many more.

Yunzhe Zhou helps people bridge the skills gap through experiential learning – by creating 30 day implementation projects. You can check out her writings on accelerated learning and experiments on life + work here.