Opening of new eSports course in Esbjerg with TV-coverage and mayoral visit

Many industries are starting to realise the various opportunities arising from gaming and gamification. As a result, eSport has taken the world by storm and is now “big business” for a lot of companies. This also includes lower secondary schools which have seen that eSport can help their pupils’ abilities to concentrate, heighten their reflexes, train their analytic sense, and evolve their skills within persistence, leadership, and teamwork. These are all abilities that can help sharpen their competencies within different subjects in school.

One of the first public schools in Denmark to put eSports on the school timetables was Cosmosskolen in Esbjerg in the southwest part of Jutland. This happened in close collaboration with Dell Technologies who is guiding and advising Cosmosskolen and delivered their popular Alienware gaming equipment, and Tricked Esport who is responsible for teaching the young adults about eSport.

As Dell Technologies’ communication agency, Discus Communications facilitated the opening event and helped create awareness around eSport and how it can be used for knowledge gaining.

Opening event with experts, politicians, and journalists

Over the course of eight weeks, Discus Communications created the strategy and tactics together with Dell Technologies and Cosmosskolen. The strategy was focused on the opening of the eSport course in mid-August right after the summer holiday. In terms of stories and angles, we focused on the educational aspects, how eSports can help strengthen children’s skills, and how Cosmosskolen took advantage of the opportunities for using supportive teaching in alternative and new ways – and still in line with the guidelines from the Ministry of Education.

In line with our strategy, we decided to arrange a grand opening event for the new eSports course, where we invited both national and local politicians, experts, journalists, teachers and of course the pupils and their parents.

Visibility and broad media coverage 

The official opening of the eSports course at Cosmosskolen was headed by the Mayor of Esbjerg, followed by headmaster Morten Mærsk Schmidt who presented the reasons for this initiative, while Tricked Esport elaborated on the details of the teaching methods. Discus Communications then created versioned content for different types of media. Both trade publications Folkeskolen and Skoleliv, TV- and radio networks as well as gaming and lifestyle publications showed interest in the story.

Watch one of the tv-features here: