Who doesn't love video games? We all play them, yet women and communities of color can be shut out of the business end of this increasingly lucrative industry.
Dr. BerNadette Lawson-Williams developed the first esports management program at a Historical Black College to make sure gaming and esports are for everybody.
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There Are No Girls on the Internet. Will be back soon with a new season, but until then and an honor of homecoming, enjoy this special mini celebration of women using technology to make change on the campuses of historically black colleges and universities. We'll be back for our regular season soon. There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget Todd and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. E sports competitive video games like Super Smash Brothers and League of Legends are big business in the sports industry, made over a billion dollars and it's projected to reach over six million people. Now it's easy to think of your stereotypical gamer dude dominating the sports industry, but the sports actually has a diverse and mainstream audience, and they're not just for hardcore gamers either. In the run up to the recent election, Alexandria Occasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar played the game among Us on Twitch as a way to connect with voters and drive turnout. And although e sports attracts a diverse audience, women and people of color are consistently underrepresented in this increasingly lucrative field. Dr Bernadette Lawson Williams spearheaded the very first academic program dedicated to E sports management at a historically black college to change that. I am a full professor of Sport Management at Johnson C. Smith University as well as the advisor of our E Sports and Gaming tri sextor the first at an HBCU, and our trisector consists of our E Sports and Gaming Management Minor Program, our E Sports Club, our Game Development Club, and our E Sports Lab, and we're the first ACCU to both and E sports and gaming prospects. So that's how we're very exciting to be a part of that kind of legacy. So for folks who don't know what exactly is the sports, each sports is that fe electronic sports, So the E is for electronics and so when we think of electronic sports, oftentimes we really don't equaint E sports with our traditional sports such as basketball, tennis, golf, because you think that it's just video gaming. But when we look at the definition of sports, a sport actually entails some element of physicality, some element of competition, and some element of quotified rules. And by that very definition, E sports are just as much sports as traditional sports and traditional sports, and so always like to provide the history and insight and definition just to make sure that our listeners are educated in that way. Do you spend time playing video games? Well through anything? Like Dr Lawson Williams, that pastime could actually be leading you to a career in gaming. She got her start just from being someone who loved playing video games with her brother, and as a black mom, she's changing the face of what we think of when we think of a gamer. Okay, so how did you find yourself doing this work? You know, I can imagine that people must tell you that you don't look like the typical person advocating for gaming and esports. How did you get involved in this? Well? Actually, funny enough, I haven't had anyone say that yes yet If they're saying it, then I don't know which is a good. But I was actually a gamer, believe it or not. Back in the eighties and nineties, I was a gamer girl. I was miss pac Man, pac Man, Donkey Come Asteroid. I used to go to the arcade with my brother and that was our sibling bonding activity playing video games. I've picked it back up when my generation the twin sons, who are eleven years old now, began to gain at about six years old. And so when I got them their first Xbox and literally set it up and saw the expression on their faces when they pay out of their room into the living room only to see Xbox on the TV screen, I was sold. I just fell in love with the fact that they were so excited and passionate about gaming. And so from there, you know, progressively, year after year, I began to get a little bit more connected to the research of e sports and gaming, and when I started to think about the connectivity between the sports and sports management, then it really turned into an opportunity to educate and to provide opportunities for our students at Johnston C. Smith University and and of course for HBCUs um j C s U, as the first HBCU within the sports and gaming trifectas now has served as a pioneer for so many other HBCUs to get into this space, and so we're so ecstatic about that opportunity just to be a part of this legacy that the announces being much more prevalent at our HBCUs. So you mentioned that a big part of the program managing live e sports event. Have you ever been to any I have been, funny enough the first sports tournament that I went to West here and Charlotte, North Carolina. Oh my goodness, the synergy in that room. You had individuals. My sons are eleven, so individuals all the way from ten eleven all the way up to their middle middle thirties. And their gaming. My sons literally was the first time that they actually play a game called Smash Brothers and feel familiar with Mario, the character Mario and and so they actually ended up playing in Gypt, and I believe for it about swing four and five years old. And it was amazing because they are so virtattle and I'm talking about my twins, so virtattole in their gaming abilities that they were able to get into the game for the first time pick up and and really moved and really manipulating so quickly. And so they learned the game on the spot to the point where one of the gentleman's observing. Of course, I wasn't familiar with the game. I was learning it as I was watching and observing, but he actually whispered to me, your son is pretty good. If this is if aught. Wow, I have gamers on my head. So I have to take this a lot more seriously because you know a lot of times as parents for us, you know, many of us field that game. It is a waste of time where my mindset has truly been transformed. I am sold it. On the business side of the sports, Dr Lawston Williams was motivated by making sure that everyone had access to the kinds of business opportunities that E sports presents. The university partnered with Riot Games, the creative company behind the wildly popular game League of Legends and it's associated E sports tournaments. Now, video game consoles like xboxes and PlayStations can be pretty pricey, which is one reason the field isn't more diverse, But thanks to this partnership, Johnson C. Smith University is leveling the playing field. Consoles may run between three hundred and five hundred dollars. Well pecs, actual computers that are specifically for gaming, can run anywhere from a thousand up to twenty five hundred dollars, and so it was really a tremendous opportunity for us to secure that funding because now we actually have gaming PCs for our students so that when they returned back to campus in the spring, they'll actually be ready to go and everyone will be on an even playing field as opposed to one person playing in the PC, another person playing from their smart prowe and another person playing from the next file. And so that's what it's exciting. But the program at Johnson C. Smith University is specifically geared at getting minorities involved as well as females involved. So we actually have a campaign going on now really pushing to get more females in the space, particularly general students at GMC yes year. How do we make sure that more women and folks of color aren't just playing games, but they're making money from gaming and east ports. Well, unsurprisingly, one answer is just supporting one another and lifting as we climb. Dr Lawson Williams says that mentorship is that one way that underrepresenting people can break into the e sports and gaming industry. So what's your advice to a woman or a person of color who may be interested in pursuing the sports as an academic study or a field or even as a gamer themselves. What's your advice to them connect to the right organization. And so the beauty of the sports is it's not confined. You know there there is no organization that really confines or restricts your ability to participate in as many leagues as you would like to do. And so you know whoever that individual is, if you can reach out to someone who's in gaming, if you're on, for instance, a networking social media LinkedIn has been the best place that I've seen in terms of individuals linked up. And I would have to send the majority if people are excited about other gamers getting into the space, and so for them that means a lot will follow up with you and provide you with God is from there. So the manty mental relationship is imperative, and this industry for sure morre. After this quick break, let's get right back to it. What do you think that little Bernadette who was this little gamer girl would think to see you? Now, you know, now that you're Dr Lawson Williams, you know, spearheading the very first historic HBCU E sports program. What do you think you're young self to think about that? So my younger self would just be pink and would actually say I knew you were going somewhere first the moment I decided in the eighth grade to begin capitalizing the end in my name because I was being creative. I knew that things are gonna happen, so God just wielded in. It just shows that, you know, those kinds of opportunities that were exposed to were younger. You know, many times they remain dormant for decades, but you know, something you know causes them. There's a catalyst somewhere that causes those you know, passions to actually rehash or rehash. You know, a lot of colleges are offering E sports scholarships, and so just as we would want that again, athletes and baseball or football to be committed to get how they in practice, to work on your skills. I'm always reminding my kids, and they're always reminding Mom, I'm I'm working on my technique, you know. So it's really cool having them. I called them my E sports consultant because a lot of wanting to clarify information, I'm like, now, this particular game is published by who oh no, it's an indie publisher. Okay, okay, it's not you know, published by Right Games or Epic, but it's published by you know, someone who's just an individual. As I remind them, there's so many innumerable opportunities career opportunits in the sports and gaming industry. They can go into the software development, game development, you know, the business side of it. They can be shout casters. I mean innumerable opportunity. The sports is so stem based, and that's what we really have to remember. It's not just about playing a video game. It's about really getting into, you know, the nature of what a video game in tails, what an E sports uh actually entails. And so I remind my students that every day you guys actually have an advantage in the industry because you're already gamers. Right now, we're the only abc U undergraduate level that has an E sports and game and management program, And so I can't say that enough because it's so exciting and we want everyone to understand the world phenomena. In that statement, it's not an uncommon story for underrepresenting people to be a big chunk of an audience of the industry but not have proportionate influence when it comes to control over that very same industry. East with them gaming is the same way women in communities of color are the ones consuming and playing the games, yet we aren't the ones making money from video games and esports. Dr Lawson Williams wants to change this. We know that of African American teams play some type of video games, but sadly, the other statistics on the other side is that less than three percent of African Americans are actually employed in the e sports and gaming industry. And so that's the sad aspect of it. But what we're excited about we turned that around it's still relying into the cloud, is we're going to change that statistic. We're gonna take that of African Americans playing video games and increase that two and meet it halfway. And we're working on that, and I feel we're gonna make that happen very soon. It's already happening. How does it feel to know you made history? It's not about me. I said it to my kids all time, never being a play where you think what's happening to you is about you. It's bigger than that. It's it's about more people having an opportunity. So I'm really at this point just a vessel. I'm just a vessel. I'm just the opportunity to aligned for my students to get to where they need to be. So what's your all time favorite game, Like, what's the game that started all of this for you? Well, I have to go back to misshat Man. I'm already trying to figure out a way to to to get access to that game in my house again so that I can demonstrate to my son that this is the real Monty didn't just make up that she was the Miss fact Man champion of her neighborhood. She really was, and I think they want to see that as well. Yeah, I had to tell you something that was really funny to happen though. One of my sons really loved TikTok. I mean, he got up to the point with one of his TikTok videos he made he had one hundred thousand life and he was just so stating, what are the videos that he and I made together. It was a video of him gaming, and I walked in the room. It was a little later than he was supposed to be up, and you know, he was this caught red hit and so the last segment of the video showed me actually gaming and it was so funny. The comments that were posted kids were like, oh my gosh, you have the best mom in the world. Your mom is an oh gee, Chee's gaming, She's and I'm just up. More parents need to spend time gaming with their kids. If this is the kind of response I'm getting to it a TikTok video. More parents need to take time to sit out and learn these now. Obviously, the controllers now are vastly different from the single hand joy stick that we had back in the eighties, so so a lot has to be lured. I love it, gamer girl and cool mom. You don't have to tell you. My late grandfather went to Johnson C. Smith University and before he passed, going to home coming every year. It was a very big part of my family and he would be so proud to see what you're doing at the university now. That's phenomenal. He would be so proud to know that you even sought me out to interview the story with you about our Johnson C. Smith University. It's funny because john C. Smith University is really like my second alma mata. I actually graduated from South Carolina State University Bulldogs and now. But you know, I've been at JCSU now, but we were not for seventeen years, seventeen years from and I love it. Every single day. I feel like I've had an immense impact on the students in our Champus community, and so I love the opportunity. It's all about impact and what we can do to help our future generation. We hope you enjoyed the special celebration of Women Making Change at HBCUs. We'll be back with There Are More. There Are No Girls on the Internet soon got a story about an interesting thing in tech which want to say Hi? You can reach us at Hello at tang godi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tang godi dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. 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