San Antonio college student Esmy Infante wasn’t always a diehard video game fan.
The Texas A&M-San Antonio senior said they decided to enroll at the university after attending a gaming event hosted by the school. They started exploring the growing world of esports once in college, spurred on by friends who also attended the Southside university.
Infante is now a team captain for TAMUSA’s Overwatch team, a multiplayer first-person shooter video game, and ranked within the top 1% of Overwatch players in the country. They won one of just five Student Leadership Awards from the National Association of Collegiate Esports in 2024.
Esports, or electronic sports, refers to organized, multiplayer video game competitions. These competitions can take place both online and in person, often attracting large audiences and offering significant prizes. Popular esports video games include titles like League of Legends, Fortnite, Dota 2 and Mario Super Smash Bros.
Infante said competitive gaming has become a big part of their life, allowing them to meet people from all over the state and represent their school.
Last month, Infante was just one of the dozens of Texas A&M students from across the state who competed in the inaugural A&M System Showdown at the Boeing Center at the Tech Port’s state-of-the-art LAN gaming facility. TAMUSA hosted teams representing Texas A&M campuses in College Station, Corpus Christi, Texarkana and Commerce.
Teams competed in an array of games, including Overwatch, Mario Super Smash Bros, League of Legends and even online chess, Infante said. TAMUSA placed first in Super Smash Bros for independent players, second for Super Smash Bros for crew play, and second for Overwatch to win first overall out of six competing campuses.
The rise of esports
The unique, growing partnership between Tech Port and TAMUSA is transforming San Antonio into a Texas esports hub, said Aaron Jaggers, head esports coach and assistant director of recreation at TAMUSA.
Five years ago, Jagger’s position at the university didn’t even exist. As esports have surged in popularity, high schools, colleges and universities have recognized that adding esports programs gives them a competitive edge over schools without teams.
TAMUSA’s unique position both as a newer A&M campus and in geographic proximity to the Tech Port has equated to it having arguably the strongest esports program in the A&M system, Jaggers said. Of the 70 competitors in the A&M System Showdown, about a quarter of them were from TAMUSA.
“I think having SAMSAT’s R20 High School Esports League, the support from Port San Antonio and the Boeing Center at the Port, and the infrastructure that we add as well — that is why San Antonio is set up to be a hub for esports,” he said.
Tracy Idell Hamilton, Port San Antonio communications manager, noted the port has about 50 gaming computers, and that roughly 1,000 people per month come through the Tech Port’s gaming center, excluding events. R20, which is free for the students, hosts 400 kids from 35 San Antonio schools, she said.
Connecting gaming to careers
It isn’t a happy accident these school-level programs all exist together and collaborate locally, said Will Garrett, Port San Antonio’s vice president of talent, and technology development and integration.
The Port has invested more than $70 million into its Tech Port Center and Arena over the past five years, hoping that making San Antonio into such a hub at the academic level will generate both more high-paying tech jobs and educated employees to fill them.
“For us, our target has been unique in the state, as we’re going to esports as a way to channel excitement and energy, eyes on screens, hands on keyboards, to get kids to understand that their passion for gaming directly relates to academic and industry career pathways,” Garrett said, noting others like Austin and Dallas have tried to capitalize more directly on esports by getting “butts in seats” for major live streaming events.
The global esports market size is expected to be worth around $16.7 billion by 2033, from $2.3 billion in 2023 — growing at a rate of 21.9% from 2024 to 2033, according to a report by Market.US.
Revenues within the esports industry come from betting, prize pools and tournaments, and sponsorship and advertising. According to Statista Market Insights, the United States was the biggest esports market worldwide in 2023, accounting for revenues of over $870 million.
While the Tech Port also hosts large livestream events, that’s not its main goal, Garrett said — engagement is.
New opportunities
Local schools are seeing the rise of esports as more than just playing games, said Ansley Partosa, head of the Greater Gaming Society of San Antonio. With an emphasis on teaching life skills, such as communication and leadership, just like traditional sporting events, esports can be a great alternative for kids who otherwise wouldn’t be involved in school activities, Partosa said.
“It’s the kids that don’t want to be in athletics or band or theater — gaming is their people, gaming is their community, that resonates with them,” she said.
This can also help kids get access to new scholarships that previously didn’t exist, Partosa noted. Nationwide, the amount of esports scholarship money doubled from $8 million to $16 million during the 2020-2021 academic year, according to scholarships.com.
Esports scholarships generally range from $500 to $10,000, with the average award around $2,000 for varsity and junior varsity team members. While full-ride scholarships, like those offered by Harrisburg University, do exist, they are rare and highly competitive. TAMUSA does not yet offer any full-ride esports scholarships but it does offer some smaller ones, and those seem to be growing, Jaggers noted.
It’s not just major university systems like A&M trying to get in on the esports boom, noted Sebastian De Hoyos, esports coach at Northwest Vista College, but local campuses too. De Hoyos, a TAMUSA graduate, said other campuses are trying to figure out how to incorporate esports programs into their models — and many of them are looking at TAMUSA as the example.
Jaggers said the A&M San Antonio esports program is becoming increasingly well known, in league with the country’s biggest programs at Syracuse University and the University of Texas at Dallas. He was recruited to the program from Ohio specifically due to the school’s esports growth, he noted.
“Fifteen years ago, we had no idea that collegiate esports would be something that would be a viable career path,” Jaggers said. “The reason that it’s taking off so quickly is because of access, right? More and more students and people have devices that can play games, whether it’s a computer or even mobile games.”
