‘We are now structured as a fully fledged student team,’ says Pawaret Boonkham, a third-year International Business Administration student at UT. ‘Comparable to HyDriven or Solar Team Twente, with departments such as operations, marketing, and research.’
Clearer mission
The team has also established a clear mission. Team manager Boonkham explains: ‘We want to use esports to develop the skills we need in our professional lives. Gaming teaches you all kinds of personal and social skills that can help you progress, including in your working life. Playing a game is fun, but for us it serves a greater purpose. With this mission in mind, we started recruiting players and staff members willing to commit to it before the summer holidays.’
ETT also decided to focus on four types of games. ‘These are football and racing games. The skills involved are always transferable from one version to another. League of Legends and Valorant are also here to stay because, besides being popular, they are both featured in the University Esports Masters competition.’
Boonkham hopes the reorganisation will have lasting results. The team now has around twenty members. ‘There are about ten players, but also four team members focusing on marketing and six on research. Some are developing data collection tools so we can measure and improve performance. Others are researching emotional regulation.’
The separate Academy teams, which were intended to develop new talent, have been disbanded. To ensure that new talent can still progress, ETT is forming a team for each game consisting of both new and experienced players.
Return to competition
The scientific element of data analysis and psychological research has received relatively little attention in recent years. ‘But we have now given it a more prominent role. We will start training in November. In the meantime, we are preparing for the official presentation of our new team and, of course, the big event towards the end of the academic year: returning to the University Esports Masters after a four-year absence.’
