Kean’s Esports New Arena Officially Opened as Playoffs Set to Begin

By Ruben Nieves

Kean’s Esports arena has officially been opened. The arena located on the second floor of the Green Lane building had their grand opening March 15.

The new facility has all new state of the art equipment where the student athletes compete for their competitions.

Athletic Director Kelly Williams was excited when he saw the final completion of the arena.

“It puts us into a whole different Esports world.” Williams said. “This facility is one of the few that’s in the northeast and what we are offering, not too many universities offer that.”

The new arena allows the different teams such as Valorant, Rocket League, Overwatch, League of Legends, Rainbow 6, Madden, NBA 2K, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to have their own space to compete with their gaming stations setup.

The main gaming station has a total of 12 PC’s, six on each side and a main screen where students can come and support the team. Outside of the main gaming station there are 24 PC’s that can be used for free play where Kean students can come and play from 12 to 5 P.M. Monday through Friday.

Outside of the arena, there are televisions set up where students can plug in their consoles and play on the televisions there.

Head coach Matt Czopik after seeing the completion of the arena was excited about the future of the Esports program.

“A lot of our student athletes have been waiting since we launched this program in Fall 2021,” Czopik said. “It’s a new chapter for our program, it makes our program feel legit, professional, and it will definitely attract a lot of current students and future students to want to compete and also play at our state-of-the-art arena.”

Czopik is amazed by the support of the university in the Esports program.

“The Esports industry is still young, so a lot of universities haven’t really fully committed to and embraced having an Esports program,” Czopik said. “The fact that Kean has embraced it, I think it’s amazing and it shows how student driven this program can really be and benefit the students.”

Rocket League head coach Joe Sarnoski feels with this new arena, it allows the students involved to be Kean athletes.

“We have a system that very few universities in the entire country have and we have something here where they’re playing across the country,” Sarnoski said. “We’re giving them that competitive opportunity and they’re becoming our Kean athletes and there’s nothing better than that to me.”

League of Legends player Gerald Davis was impressed with the new equipment in the arena.

“My performance increased dramatically,” Davis said. “It’s better connection, better performing PC’s, everything’s super-fast and super smooth.”

It was announced by the ECAC that 16 different universities across the country will be joining the conference. Czopik is excited to have the Kean Esports program compete against these different universities.

“That’s the best part about this program, the fact that we have the ability to compete with so many different schools across the country, ranging from Division III to Division I,” Czopik said. “As the ECAC collegiate league is growing, we will have the opportunity to compete with many other colleges throughout the United States.”

With their season over, the playoffs are set to begin. 6 of Kean’s Esports teams have made it to the playoffs. Czopik did see some improvement from the Overwatch team and their Madden player.

“There were definitely some shining improvements, like our Madden player got a better seed and our Overwatch team also got a very solid record,” Czopik said. “But I believe all of our teams definitely stepped up and did a good job.”

With the playoffs set to begin April 6, Czopik believes his team has a fair shot in the playoffs.

“I think they all have a fair shot making it far, but the competition is fierce nonetheless,” Czopik said. “It really comes down to anyone coming in on Wednesday (April 6) and Saturday (April 9) and seeing how they do and definitely as much support as we can get can really ultimately boost and build a lot of motivation for our teams.”

With the completion of the Esports arena, Williams believes it will bring awareness of athletics in Kean.

“This is a positive marketing tool and a great prudent tool, there are so many individuals that are looking to find an opportunity to identify with a program in Kean,” Williams said. “Now we are spreading our wings and diversifying our athletic department where you don’t have to be a 6 ‘6 stud baseball player or football player; we’re excited to be a part of one of the few universities in this state that offer this to this level.”

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