JOA makes plans for another level of esports

KEEN ON stepping up their game, the Jamaica eSports Initiative (JEI), the national esports body locally, has continually made incremental additions.

That advance for video-game manoeuvrings has gotten an injection to boost its speed through a grant from the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA), which has been boosting sporting disciplines, including those that are less popular, under its ‘Sport for All’ mantra.

Enabling that drive is its Equipment Grant initiative, which was launched by the JOA in 2021.

“The establishment of the Equipment Grant was an important step in ensuring the competitiveness of our members and to improve their capacity in growing their respective sports,” shared Ryan Foster, CEO/Secretary General of the JOA.

“The JEI has done well to grow esports in Jamaica and has established a strong strategic plan to get esports at the 2027 ESports Olympics.”

Esports, in terms of participation, is huge and growing faster, from the time when playing was largely done in shops and arcades, to now where living and bedrooms have become a hive for the activity.

Still, there are many without living-room access and the vast improvement in numbers has brought greater organisation and structure, contributing to the formation of a national team that has played in Conference tournaments, Panam Games and World Championships, with sights set on making it to the 2027 ESports Olympics to be held in Saudia Arabia.

Those standards brought formalities, including local tournaments and a base, at Technology Innovation Centre at the University of Technology (UTech), which is constantly being developed to steer the game’s development.

“We’re working towards a full-scale lab, but for the time being we’re buying the equipment little little and upgrading where necessary,” shared Gregory Moore, President of JEI.

“We host qualifying events and such … we need equipment to facilitate that, as well as you have persons who have the skillset but they don’t have the equipment at home and they would need to either be there, whether we’re conducting training sessions or workshops. They’ll come up to the lab at UTech and that is where the equipment comes in handy.

“So it’s just a continuous effort for us to build out the gaming scene and the Jamaica Olympic Association is playing a crucial role in helping us to achieve that goal,” Moore stated.

Commenting on the JEI’s aspirations, Foster said his organisation is happy to play a supporting role.

“The equipment is needed to assist them in their plans to not only host competitions but to also aide in the training and preparation of their athletes,” he said.

“The JOA has been leading in this cause and we are happy that over 20 of our member federations have benefited from our Equipment Grant. We have invested over $40 million in this initiative,” Foster added.

Some specific enhancements by the JEI include propping up its high-end computer systems and production capacity, because it also does live streams of its tournaments for not only viewership, but to generate interest and development.

“Sometimes you find that we’ve to rent equipment and sometimes the rental cost can be a little high, so we try to acquire equipment along the way as we grow. So the grant from the JOA really went a long way,” More explained.

“A lot of it went towards our own production equipment like cameras and microphones, streaming computers and we’re also upgrading some of our gaming systems as well.”

Moore, who is also CEO of PlayJamaica Limited and VirtualReality Jamaica Limited, says the sport affords cognitive development while stating the JEI’s ambitions to make Jamaica a hub.

“Right now gaming is almost an essential skillset for the new type of jobs that are coming out, especially in the IT sector; hand-eye coordination, cognitive abilities, those kinds of skillsets is what gaming, video games help to develop, so we just hope that we continue getting the support from corporate and from the JOA,” he said.

“We just hope that as we grow we become an esports tourist destination because we assist the other islands to get their thing in order. Jamaica, especially for the English-speaking Caribbean, Jamaica is the centre for esports right now,” Moore continued.

“Our intention is to grow it into having something like an esports festival in Jamaica, which is what we’re working towards.”