Behind The Screen: Inside Sheffield Business School’s BA In Esports Management

Growing up in Sweden, and not unlike countless other children and teens, Fredrik Orvegard spent a lot of his spare time playing video games. It fueled his interest in computers and technology.

After working a few years as an adult, Orvegard wanted a university degree to help him build a career. He started looking around and thinking about what he wanted to study. He stumbled upon a new degree that would, somewhat surprisingly, allow him to incorporate his love of gaming into a professional career inside an industry growing at hyper speed: a bachelor’s in Esports Management from Sheffield Business School in the United Kingdom.

Esports is, of course, short for electronic sports. It is the competitive world of video gaming, where professional players and teams battle it out in huge tournaments with real money on the line. Instead of a basketball court, soccer pitch, or football field, their field of play is behind a computer screen.

Think about what it takes to bring the Lebron Jameses, the Pelés, and the Tom Bradys of the world to your television or phone screen. There’s an entire industry of event managers, broadcasters, marketers, coaches, team managers, content creators, journalists, and even lawyers working on the periphery. The same is true for esports.

“Esports revenue in 2022 was $1.44 billion. It’s projected to be $5.48 billion in 2029,” says Oli Steele, a lecturer in Sheffield’s esports management program. “Esports is the top level professional player part of the gaming industry, and the gaming industry as a whole is actually larger than music, TV, and movies combined.”

Sheffield’s program, now in its third year, aims to train the people around the star gamers in all manner of esports jobs.

A TAILORED APPROACH TO ESPORTS

Sheffield Business School’s BA in Esports Management is one of the few programs in the UK specifically designed to meet the needs of the esports industry. It first launched several years ago as a university-wide general esport course, but Sheffield Hallam University soon recognized the rapid growth of the industry – particularly during COVID when traditional sports leagues spent millions quarantining so athletes could meet face-to-face. Gamers could compete in tournaments from their couches.

Based on student feedback, the university paused admissions for a year and rebuilt the program to focus on esports management to better align with the needs of the industry. It has now evolved into a three-year bachelor’s degree with a curriculum blending business fundamentals with industry-specific knowledge.

“I was trying to get into the industry a couple of years ago, and I realized there was a bottleneck at entry level jobs. Everyone’s either got qualifications but no experience, or experience but not qualifications,” Steele says.

“What we aim to do at Sheffield Hallam is provide, obviously, the qualifications that you come to the university for, but with a focus of building a portfolio and actually finding your niche within the industry. We give students real-world, hands-on experience, so they can go to an employer and say, “Hey, I see you’ve got this issue, it’s costing you about £5,000 pounds per month. Well, I can solve it for £3,000, why don’t you hire me?”

“Hands-on” is a core feature of the degree, in fact. All students have access to the state-of-the-art Esports Lab equipped with top-of-the-line computers, a content creation suite, a green screen studio, and industry-standard streaming software. From the lab, Orvegard and a classmate created a weekly news-style segment focused on esports and is now working with a charity to host a live-streamed gaming event.

Instead of a final dissertation, every student has to organize a live event at the end of their third-year. That includes finding money to promote and fund it, recruit the gamers if they are hosting a tournament or streaming event, organize all the logistics, and then execute it all.

“These experiences will be very helpful, not just for me, but to show my peers that it is possible to start our career within the esports industry right now whilst furthering our knowledge. When we graduate, we will be the best candidates for prospective employers,” says Orvegard who will graduate in 2026.

DIVERSE CAREER PATHS

Esports is a broad field, and the skills students develop at Sheffield are applicable to a wide range of roles. Orvegard is interested in a behind-the-scenes career, perhaps as a tournament organizer, a corporate liaison, or even as a lecturer in Esports Management.

“If you can think of any job in traditional sports, there’s the same job in esports,” Steele says.

One student in the program, for example, is an aspiring journalist in the field. The university helped send him to America to cover a Call of Duty tournament. They have students who want to be educators, a student who wants to work with Red Bull in the sponsorship space, and even lawyers. If you think about 13- and 14-year-old professional gamers who are looking at million-dollar sponsorship deals, they’re going to need people to help manage their assets and make sure they aren’t taken advantage of.

The skills are also transferable, Steele says. While esports may be niche, the business lessons are not.

And, like any business degree worth its salt, Sheffield’s esport management program has built-in networking events and industry partnerships.

There are certainly other business programs that offer esports content, specializations, and even degrees. But the cherry on Sheffield Business School’s cake is its expertise in event management, Steele tells P&Q. A second-year student is currently working on a 24-hour game stream to support a children’s hospital from its Esports Lab. He wants to expand the scope of the event to include in-person activation and broaden its impact.

AN ESPORTS WINTER?

While the esports industry is growing, it also faces challenges ahead. When it first started exploding, it saw massive investment as people tried to replicate the traditional sports industry. Companies needed managers, and pulled traditional sports managers into esport roles. It skipped the kind of grassroots development of other young industries.

Steele refers to what some are now calling an “Esports Winter,” where brands are pulling back on their investments. This could actually be an opportunity for the next generation of esports professionals, he says.

“What we say to our students is we want you to become knowledgeable of the industry in order to become the next generation of leaders and managers that do not make the same unethical and unsustainable decisions,” Steele says. “Learn the industry, see what went wrong, see what works, get some industry experience as well as the qualifications to really build it up better. It may look bleak now, but it creates an amazing opportunity for you.”

Orvegard, too, is optimistic. After graduation, he may move to China and work as a translator for Scandinavian-speaking esports teams. Or, he may stay in the UK to teach in esports management or start a company that helps charities organize gaming events. Whichever path he chooses, he thinks the skills he learned in the program will propel him forward.

“I will have gained experience in working with technology in a professional setting. I will have a portfolio of content that I can show to future employers. More importantly, I will have the skills and knowledge to create my own business and build upon what I have learned of the industry and the connections I have made,” he says.

 

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