By Mekhi Abbott
Special to the AFRO
mabbott@afro.com
The Howard University Esports Association represented Wizards District Gaming in NBA 2K’s new Nothing But Internet esports tournament. Wizards District Gaming is a part of Monumental Sports and Entertainment’s esports program.
NBA 2K kicked off their Nothing But Internet tournament series with the Class Crowns Tournament, a college and university esports competition. The debut three-day tournament series began on Feb. 25 and was streamed exclusively on the NBA2KLeague’s Twitch TV channel.
“The next official 2K League season doesn’t start until the fall, but during this sort of hiatus, the League is going to be hosting some online tournaments throughout the spring,” said Andrew McNeil, vice president of esports at Monumental Sports and Entertainment. “Knowing that Howard University’s right up the street from us here and they’ve got an awesome sports program as well as NBA 2K players, we reached out to see if they were interested in representing Wizards District Gaming in this tournament.”
Monumental invited the Howard esports team to District E, their esports event and training center, for the tournament. Jevanie Davis serves as the team captain for Howard University’s 2K esports team. Malcolm Weekes, a freshman legal communications major and member of the Howard esports team, was appreciative of the opportunity to represent Howard in this innovative event.
“It’s a really big opportunity for me, the team and for Howard in general to be able to partner with Monumental gaming to participate in an event like this because it’s a lot of exposure. There’s cameras everywhere, we were able to get a lot of content from this,” said Weekes.
“We’re young, we’re Black and we’re gifted, and we’re going to get done what needs to get done. Gaming is included in that.”
Weekes also spoke about how the event could be an opportunity for more people at Howard University to learn more about esports.
“Being at Howard, most people don’t know about gaming or may have certain stigmas about gaming competitively. But this is a good way to show people that this is an unique opportunity to get involved around campus and build community,” said Weekes.
Monumental was one of the first mainstream sports organizations to heavily invest into esports, beginning in 2015. Part of Monumental’s mission is to serve as a catalyst to foster amateur gaming in the D.C. Metropolitan region.
The Class Crowns Tournament included eight schools that span across the United States and Toronto. Howard faced the University of Maryland’s esports team in the tournament and lost in that round.. The University of Maryland advanced to the championship round, where they lost to Celtics Gaming, but both esports teams qualified for the championship tournament in June.
NBA 2K’s Nothing But Internet esports tournament series will have three more unique events at the end of March, April and May. The championship series will be contested from June 24-26.
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