Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Since the club’s founding more than three years ago, St. Louis CITY SC officials have stated a desire to be a part of the region at all levels. The franchise has activated youth soccer programs designed to encourage kids to adopt the sport. It has propped up the local dining scene, collaborated with St. Louis-based artists, and launched initiatives meant to reach St. Louisans of all backgrounds and experiences.
Now, the club is getting into higher education.
CITY and the University of Missouri–St. Louis announced a new partnership on Thursday that will see the two organizations collaborate on esports programming and expand the school’s sports management curriculum. For CITY, which has been clear about its intention to be more than just a sports team, a multi-pronged alliance with the region’s largest public university is a way to touch a different and crucial part of the community.
“Everything we do is very, very intentional,” says Dennis Moore, the club’s chief revenue officer. “When you think about education, it fits right into what our vision is. That vision is about moving this region forward.”
With the region’s newest big league team on board, UMSL’s sports management program will now include opportunities for students to learn from team executives through on-campus instruction and speaking engagements. The club will also offer internships in a variety of roles to UMSL students. These opportunities won’t be restricted merely to students on the sports management track. From CITY’s point of view, partnering with the school isn’t merely about developing a new crop of sporting professionals and facility managers. It’s about sharing the club’s own cross-department expertise to help students grow in the area’s most relevant to their studies.
“As a sports team, yeah, we can bring a very particular sports management lens to how we help,” Moore says. “But it’s bigger than that. It’s not just about sports management. When you think about a sports organization, we have finance, we have human resources, we have legal, we have operations, and we have digital and social. We are a microcosm of the biggest employers in the state. When you think about BJC [Healthcare] or Lou Fusz [Automotive Network], we’re no different. We just happen to be a little more public, and can bring a lot of eyeballs from an awareness perspective.”
Just as soccer’s popularity continues to climb in the United States, esports represents the next frontier for the sports entertainment industry. Over the course of the past decade, high schools and colleges across the country have added esports programs and club teams. Maryville and Saint Louis University are among the local institutions that have established a presence in the gaming community, and in the coming months, UMSL is poised to join them. The school’s first competitive esports team will debut during the upcoming fall semester.
“Esports is the fastest growing sports program, probably globally,” says UMSL chancellor Kristin Sobolik. “Anything that our students are interested in, we want to be interested in as well. We want to make sure that we’re providing those kinds of offerings.”
UMSL, too, is serious about its commitment to esports. The school is now the presenting sponsor of CITY’s participation in the eMLS, which is Major League Soccer’s competitive esports league. University branding will be featured on the club’s eMLS kit, as well as inside CITY’s esports lounge at CITYPARK. The school’s esports program and the team will also stage joint events where students can get to know CITY’s designated eMLS player, Niklas Raseck, a native of Germany who will be representing the club in competitions beginning this month.
“How cool is that?” Moore says, “to think that eMLS and UMSL are going on the international stage via this partnership.”
