MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University is known for its Division I sports teams. But inside of room 137 of the Business and Aerospace Building on campus sits a different type of school sports team.

Middle Tennessee News reporter Jayce Standridge, a senior in the MTSU School of Journalism and Strategic Media, talked with host Andrew Oppmann about the growing esports program on campus in the August edition of “Out of the Blue,” the television magazine program for MTSU.

Watch the full segment below with host Andrew Oppmann, vice president for marketing and communications:

Esports — short for electronic sports — is a competitive organized form of video gaming where individuals as well as teams face off in popular games.

“MTSU ESports is a school-recognized club in the National Esports Collegiate Conference, or the NECC (which) boasts over 400 schools and universities, and each competes against each other for a shot at a national championship,” explained Standridge in a Middle Tennessee News clip of the video story he produced that “Out of the Blue” shared during the interview.

The club has grown tremendously over the past year, mainly due to the addition of the MTSU Esports Lab, which provides space for students to congregate and compete.

Standridge was excited to find out about the esports club through his research for his MTN story, as he’s no stranger to the competition. During the pandemic, the Cleveland, Tennessee, native became a highly competitive player in the NFL football game, “Madden.”

“I started really, really practicing and getting good,” said Standridge, who advanced into the video game playoffs as the sixth seed for “Madden” and placed third in the nation, which he called “a surreal experience.”

Conference USA — the athletic conference MTSU competes in — will potentially be expanding into esports in the coming years.

“If all goes well for the CUSA, this program could join the ranks of the most prominent sports on campus,” Standridge said in the MTN clip.

To learn more about esports at MTSU, visit https://mtsu.edu/businesslab/services/eSports.php.

“Out of the Blue” is available anytime on the university’s YouTube channel, the True Blue TV channel, Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. It also airs on Murfreesboro cable Channel 9 daily at 6 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.; NewsChannel5+ at 3:30 p.m. Sundays; and streamed on the MTSU Jazz Network through WMOT.org at 7 a.m. on the first Sunday of each month; and on other cable outlets in Middle Tennessee, so check local listings. 

It is also available as a podcast on iTunes and Google Play and as individual interview segments on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/453hxg3. 

Watch previous episodes of “Out of the Blue” at https://mtsunews.com/out-of-the-blue.

— Nancy DeGennaro (Nancy.DeGennaro@mtsu.edu)