Online Esports Masters at Miami and a word from Dr. BVK
After much hard work from the ETDB and Sport Leadership and Management Leadership of Miami University have finally unveiled the Masters of Esports Management. To get an inside look at everything that is going on within the program and build an understanding of what master’s students can expect while attending, I interviewed Dr. Michael Bailey-Van Kuren. BVK, as his students and colleagues know him, is the current Chair of the department of Emerging Technology in Business + Design and has been a member of Miami University’s staff since 1998. Focusing on human-centered problems, BVK started his career in engineering and robotics before switching to the more general design and integrating his expertise in robotics and engineering within ETBD. By this point, you must be thinking, how does someone with Dr. BVK’s background end up one of the leaders of the push for Esports support here at Miami? Well, it’s a culmination of the school’s search for a new master’s program and BVK’s interest in learning more about Esports. As I learned from BVK, the school is pushing to establish a set of online master’s programs to adopt a more rigorous curriculum in this post-Covid world; our Esports curriculum is the first step in that direction. BVK designed this as an integration of the Sports Leadership and Management and Esports Management Programs to program to provide pathways to professional work within the Esports Space.
When asked what types of students would excel within this new program, BVK pondered for a moment before answering, “goal-oriented students, students that are driven and want to tie in previous knowledge with a new area of study.” Their goal with this program seems to be attracting students of diverse skill sets and backgrounds that want to build a career in esports with their viewpoint. You can see this in the curriculum, with six introductory graduate-level Esports courses, four graduate Sports Leadership and Management courses, and an internship or a practicum. During your study, you experience both the business and competitive aspects of Esports.
A special thanks to Dr. BVK for allowing me to interview him for this article.
If this program sounds interesting to you online applications can be found at the link below:
https://miamioh.edu/online/programs/graduate/master-of-esports-management/index.html
