ISU unveils brand new esports arena
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POCATELLO – An eastern Idaho university officially opened a new competition space for the institution’s newest competitive sports team.
Tuesday afternoon, Idaho State University President Robert Wagner offered some remarks before giving the word to lower the curtain hiding the Direct Communications Esports Arena. A crowd of over a hundred students, faculty, and players gathered in the Pond Student Union Building cheered as they caught their first glimpse of the arena, filled with rows of computers and brightly lit screens.
This new arena will serve as the competition space for ISU Esports, which was officially founded in 2024 and competes against 10 other teams in the Big Sky Conference.
“This facility puts Idaho State University esports on the map in the Big Sky, in the country and in the world, and we’re proud to have it here,” said ISU President Robert Wagner.
Head Coach Charles Johnston and Broadcast Coordinator Daniel Sheldon said that planning the space was a long process, working through the budget and deciding how best to bring the project together.
“The planning phase for this started probably a year and a half ago, where we really started talking about what we wanted, where the space was going to be,” Johnson said. “It’s been a long process of figuring out the best way of putting this together.”
“But it feels so good to finally be here, where students can see (behind) the cardboard that has been hiding it for months now. For fans to be able to come in and experience the space, for everybody to be able to see how cool this program is, is just so fantastic,” Sheldon said.
The arena was made possible by a $520,000 donation from Direct Communications. During his remarks, Wagner thanked Tim May, president of Direct Communications.
“Your generous support and belief in our program’s vision made this dream a reality for us. You’ve given our players a world-class platform to learn, to compete, and to win,” Wagner said.
Additionally, Wagner said not only will the arena host high school and collegiate tournaments, but the university has also put a bid in to host this coming year’s Big Sky Championship. Wagner spoke highly of the opportunities the arena opens up for the university as a whole.
“It will act as a major beacon for our recruitment efforts, recruiting top-level gaming students from all over the area, and just as importantly, this arena allows us to bring the community together,” Wagner said.
The Big Sky’s collegiate esports program is relatively new, having emerged at the same time as ISU’s. Because it’s new, Johnston said the collegiate-to-professional pipeline isn’t well established yet, but they hope to build the program until it reaches that point.
“That’s our goal, is to build you know ourselves as a reputable program so we can feed the professional league in that sort of way,” Johnston said.
But Sheldon also pointed out that the players learn skills that are transferable to a professional environment, such as communicating in high-pressure situations and working with teammates.
“These are skills that a lot of employers are looking for nowadays. And you combine those kinds of soft skills with the hard skills that many of our students have related to computers, coding, software engineering, computer sciences, and I think it creates such a more well-rounded student when they end up finishing their program,” Sheldon said.
And above all, Johnston and Sheldon both agreed that at the heart of it, playing video games is fun.
“I have a couple different pillars of how we like to think about the team culture and … number one is joy,” Johnston said. “The reason we’re here is the love of the game.”