Using Design and Innovation Methods to Teach Esports

In 2020, James Madison University launched an eSports program that has quickly made a name for itself nationally by becoming a finalist or winning several tournaments in three years. JMU’s Esports program resides in JMU X-Labs, an experiential teaching and learning lab on campus that uses design methods to work on complex problems, often for clients. In 2021, faculty associated with the X-Labs began collaborating with faculty from Sports Management and Hospitality to collaborate on incorporating Esports into curricular and co-curricular learning experiences at our university. The first course to arise out of that partnership focused on students researching best to design eSports tournaments and creating a tournament simulation. The second iteration, and the focus of this teaching case, focused on designing a course that asked students to work on semester-long projects in teams that speculatively explored ways that eSports could be developed on the JMU campus, not just as a competitive sport, but also for curricular and co-curricular learning purposes.This manuscript provided specific strategies that the second course on Esports used in developing research and solutions to real-world problems using Esports’ business ideas and technology.Using a Learning Record model, the authors explored and analyzed ways that Esports could be used in society to address current issues based on students’ perspectives. Four themes emerged from this discussion: Esports events; Esports and inclusive community; Esports and Learning experiences; and Esports culture. The experiences from this learning activity can inform practices for academic institutional practices and preparation of teaching an Esports course from a design and innovation perspective using research/theoretical concepts.