Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.150 | feat. Rob O'Connor from ELITE Gaming!

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Elite Gaming’s Rob O’Connor on eSports, STEM, and Building Community in Syracuse Host Danny Tripodi interviews Rob O’Connor of Elite Gaming about their advanced gaming center in Syracuse that combines eSports with STEM/CTE programming, content creation (podcasting and streaming), drones, and Lego robotics. O’Connor explains Elite Gaming began as a pre-COVID idea with partner Matt, grew after touring other facilities, launched in a rented wing at MOST, and expanded to 60 PCs as educators showed interest in engaging students who weren’t involved in traditional activities. He addresses misconceptions about gaming, describing structured practices, accountability for grades/attendance/discipline, teamwork and communication skills, and stories of students improving school engagement and reaching college, including eSports scholarships. He discusses helping districts build eSports programs and using AI tools for game development learning. He promotes a Sunday high school invitational featuring Smash, Rocket League, and Fortnite. 00:00 Welcome and Introductions 00:31 What Elite Gaming Is 02:07 Why They Started 04:47 Debunking Gaming Myths 06:58 Scholarships and College 09:31 Student Success Stories 12:33 Team Structure and Accountability 14:17 Soft Skills and Life Lessons 18:48 Hope for the Future 20:21 Rapid Fire Game Picks 21:47 Gameplay Versus Graphics 22:44 Toxic Fanbases And Digital Citizenship 23:31 Building School Esports Programs 26:16 AI And Game Dev In Schools 30:54 High School Invitational And Community Impact 33:10 Future Of Esports In Education 34:33 Final Thanks And Sign Off

I earned my degree online at Arizona State University. I chose to get my degree at ASU because I knew that I'd get a quality education. They were recognized for excellence and that I would be prepared for the workforce upon graduating. To be associated with ASU, both as a student and alum, it makes me extremely proud and having experienced the program I know now that I'm set up for success. Learn more at ASUonline.asu.edu. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too.

With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. and welcome to Good News York. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm your host, Danny Tripodi,

and I'm super excited to introduce the man, the myth, legend, Rob O'Connor. Thank you so much for coming. Rob, how are you? I'm great, man. Thanks for having me. This is exciting. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, Rob, I know about elite gaming,

but tell people that might not know about elite gaming. Yeah, there's a lot of misconceptions about what we are. It's hard to describe to people what we do. without actually being there. A lot of people have preconceived notions. They either think we're like a Dave and Busters or an internet cafe from years ago where you go check your AOL email, right?

But we're very much more of an advanced or not professional gaming center, but more advanced gaming center. And we also do a lot with STEM, CTE, and technical careers as well. Because it's all related, right? When you're playing games, you're excited about technology usually. So you want to learn about technology.

In fact, this morning we have a field trip there. And we're doing some fun Minecraft programming and things with the kids. So it's really exciting. So it's a little bit of everything, really. We do a lot of events. We teach kids how to do exactly what we're doing now. We're podcasting. We have a content creator studio there for them.

We do video streaming. So like when we're playing matches for e-sports, we stream them out on our Twitch and YouTube channels, so we teach students how to do that. We also have dipped our toes into drones and Lego robotics, too. Wow. Because it's all related, right? I mean, we're living in a technological society, and now we're technically, you know, in the micron era, right? So here we are. That is fantastic, Rob.

What made you want to start elite gaming? Oh, man. I don't think we have long enough. Well, it was really a passion for gaming that really got me and my business partner, Matt, excited about it and started. We actually started talking about this, like pre-COVID, doing something like this. And originally it was just going to be an event. We were just going to do, and that was before we even knew about Retro GameCon, which is amazing event, by the way. We go on and on about that. But we're just like getting like a,

like a, like a sports tournament and a little bit of a trade show thing, you know, for more of like the, you know, the e-sports and gaming, video gaming, the modern games type stuff. But as we got into it, we realized that Syracuse really didn't have a big community for that or a place for the community to get together for those type of games. So we, you know, we, we, we kicked around some of and we decided, well, everything's kind of shut down now, so we really can't do anything. Let's travel around a little bit and tour some facilities that do esports and find out what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, what their challenges are, what their successes are, and maybe we can make something work.

And, you know, after three or four years, COVID finally started dying down. So we took the plunge, moved into the most museum. We run it a wing there for a year and a half. We had like 20 PCs, a small stage. And we quickly realized we had some people come in doing tours, and some of those people were educators, principals, school administrators. And we quickly realized that there was a need or there was definitely an interest from school districts to figure out how to engage their kids because they're gamers anyways, right?

They're going home gaming, and a lot of these kids are not engaged with school. You know, they're just, they're not traditional sports kids, right? Yep. So that's kind of how we kind of took our spin into where we are now. We quickly outgrew our space. We now have 60 PCs and a bunch of consoles and things like that. So that's kind of in a nutshell. That's how we started.

Nice. That is fantastic. I mean, and it is a beautiful facility. If for people at home watching, it, it's, it's so impressive that Syracuse has something like this. And I think it's something that kind of mystifies the older generation because they're like, what are they doing down there? But that leads me into my next question.

What is something that most folks get wrong about the younger generation and gaming? Because, you know, I've heard it before. It's like, oh, these kids, they're always on their computers. I don't know what they're doing. They're playing the Fortnite. Could you talk about that a little bit? The Fortnite. That's exactly what they say, too.

Yeah, there's a lot of, you know, for the last, I don't know how many decades, in decades, it's been pounded into their heads that gaming is the devil. You know, it'll rot your brain. You're going to end up smoking weed in your mom's basement the rest of your life. And, you know, you're going to be unhealthy. Your brain's going to rot. So it couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, you know, those stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason because obviously that did happen, right?

But now it's evolved so much, even in the last five years, it's evolved so much that it's really cool when we finally get like a parent or a teacher or a school superintendent there. And they see our space. They see the kids interacting with each other. They see that it's more than just video games. I had one dad come in, or me was a teacher, come in and said, I don't understand what they're doing. All they're doing is mashing buttons. They're not really doing anything.

And I'm like, well, that's like saying chess is moving pieces of plastic around on a piece of wood. Yeah. I said, on the surface, yes, that's what it looks like. But if you take a minute, step back, get rid of your preconceived notions, and take a deeper look at it and really understand what's going on, it's way more than that. And conversely, we've had moms come in after their son or daughter's been in our program for a while, like tearing up. because their son or daughter has done like a 180.

Yeah. You know, their personality is coming out. They have friends. They're looking forward to going to school. Nice. They're engaged. Their grades are going up. They want to go to school because they can participate in this.

Yep. They have a friend group. Their confidence is rising. And now, like, oh, my God, they're thinking about college. They didn't think about college before. That's amazing. Right. And there's now college programs for e-sports, right?

Oh, hundreds and hundreds. It's amazing. It's basically like there, it's the new age athlete, you know, is a sports player. Yeah, for sure. I mean, as of the last time I ran some reports, there's over 200 colleges nationwide. Wow. That are actively recruiting with scholarships for students, right? S.U is one of them.

Yeah, I was familiar about that. That's crazy. I didn't realize the number, though, 200 schools. Plus. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, yep. And last year, they awarded about $25 million in scholarships. Wow.

So, and these aren't pro-e sports players. A lot of people think you have to be a pro player. Right. You don't. Yeah. If you do well in high school, you get recruited, you just continue to play in college. You know, you don't have to be a pro that goes to the big, multi-million dollar tournaments and stuff like that. You don't have to be.

But that's the exciting part. And what's cool about it is a lot of people think, again, that if you go to school, school and you play e-sports, you got to do something, you've got to be a computer programmer or a computer science major or whatever. You're like, no, you can be a doctor, lawyer, you know, accountant and still play e-sports. Yeah, it's just a sport. Yeah. It's just like all the football players up at S.U.

They don't, they're not going to school to be a football coach. Yep. Right? So it's the same sort of thing. But the, we're noticing the preconceived notions are slowly slipping away. Nice. Um, the older, even some of the older generations have that light bulb moment. We're like, oh, okay. Yeah. You know, and what I really enjoy is when mom and dad come in and they see their son or daughter competing, you know, in our facility and, you know, high-fiving their friends. Um, you know, walking, maybe walking away with a trophy and getting their pictures taken and, you know, things like that. It really, you know, really, that's the lightball moment that we like live for. Yeah. Because they realize that their son or

daughter has found something. They found their tribe. They found their people. You know, the saying I use is when you're in a room full of nerds, you're not a nerd anymore. Yeah. You're just like everybody else sitting next to you. I like that. So, and as a parent, that's all you really want for your kids is to be happy, healthy, and to have a productive life and be excited about getting up every morning. Yeah. Absolutely. No, that is fantastic. So I was going to ask you, can you tell me about a moment or a student that remembered why your work matters? But I think you kind of answered that. If you do, though, is there one that really stuck out to you?

There's been actually quite a few, actually, which is exciting to say. Nice. Yeah, there was one kid he graduated last year. when he first came to us when he was a freshman wasn't going he didn't go to school the first like three weeks of school wow um Syracuse city school student didn't go to school for the first three weeks of school and then he decided to show up at our place I'm like well that's great you're here but you can't stay yeah you have to go to school yep in order to be part of this okay I'll go to school so now he

started going to school so he's going to school on a regular basis which wasn't happening before yeah he was having a good time at e-sports making friends and then we get as, you know, they have to give us the report cards. They can't come unless they have good grades. So his grades weren't great. After a little while, we're like, well, you got to get your grades up, dude. You can't. You got to hit the pause button with e-sports.

Got to get your grades up. Okay, fine. Next semester, his grades were fine, going to school, came in. He got in trouble one day doing something he shouldn't have done in school. I don't even know what it was. sorry dude you're you're you're on probation at school can't come in yeah okay fine I won't get in you know whatever yeah so fast forward four years he's now in college for computer science doing e-sports in college so that's amazing it's it's pretty cool and like I said he isn't the

only one but he was kind of like our first one yeah we currently have a Syracuse city school senior being actively recruited by SU. Really? To play Super Smash Bros. Nice. And SU currently has the number one smash player in North America. Really? Up there.

On a full scholarship. Wow. A full scholarship to SU. Yep. By playing Smash Bros. Yep. That is amazing. It's crazy, right?

Man, my parents, they lied to me. You got to get up. Video games aren't going to pay the bills. Yeah. Man, I'm jealous. That is amazing. though. And the other story, I mean, you guys helped change that trajectory of that guy's life, you know? I'd like to think, I'd like to think we helped a little bit. Yeah.

I can't take full credit for it. But, you know, if we can change a few lives. Yeah. I mean, finding a community, like you were saying, where you don't feel alienated, I'm sure that had to have felt good and reason why he kept coming back, you know. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Yeah, because you have common ground with everybody in the room, right? Whether you play smash or Rocket League or Fortnite or, you know, rivals, you all have some common ground. You know, you're all there. You're competing against other schools and, you know, and they don't just come, a lot of people think that they just come and hang out and play games. That isn't what we do there. We, it's very structured. We have practices. We have scrimmages and then we have matches

against other high schools. So it's very structured. It's very much like a ball sport structure. Yeah. And we hold them accountable, just like I explained. Yeah. Grades, attendance, discipline, you got to be on point or else you can't be part of a team. And part of what a big, one of our biggest challenges, if I'm being perfectly transparent, is the kids who come to us initially aren't used to being part of a team. Right? Gamers aren't. Right. You're a, home, usually by yourself, in your room, bedroom, whatever. And you're communicating with people, but you're not used to being in the same room with them and communicating with them and being part of a regular team. Right. So that's a different dynamic that a lot of kids aren't used to.

Yeah. But they learn how to do that, right? They learn how to be accountable to their teammates. You know, you're playing rivals. You have five other teammates. Yeah. Right. And you play, Usually you play a very specific role, whether you're a tank or whatever. Right. And your team counts on you to be there when you have a match against another school. And they expect you to show up their practices so you know what the other teammates are doing and build your skills together. Yeah. So that's a dynamic that we tend to have to work on quite a bit.

But guess what? That's an employable skill that these kids have to learn. Absolutely. Could you talk a little bit more about that? Because, you know, being a gamer myself, I have a little bit of a bias towards other video game players because that's something that I know that these younger generation have a lot more of is being able to communicate with one another, just being a team player from this aspect of e-sports and, like, working together to accomplish something or win at games.

You know, could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, it's the communication skills, we've talked to a lot of colleges. Yeah. S.U, Hercimer, we work with those folks. We've talked a lot of the SUNY schools. Their biggest shortfall they see with high school students coming into colleges, lack of, they're not prepared for that environment, right? Their lack of communication skills.

Yeah. Their lack of time management, right? They're problem solving skills. their critical thinking skills, motivation, right? All that stuff is baked into e-sports. I mean, any traditional ball sport as well. Yeah. I have two boys, two sons, 28 and 24.

Now they're off doing their own thing now. But my oldest, this is before e-sports, they're both gamers, by the way. Grew up gaming with them on my lap. We had tons of fun, Ratchet and Clank and Jack and Dexter and all those games. and but in school my oldest

found marching band loved it he started out when he was in seventh grade all the way through high school he had a great experience he learned a lot of life lessons he learned how to interact with people how to interact with people

you didn't necessarily get along with right how to resolve those conflicts and kind of put him aside and focus on the work and then my youngest was a soccer and lacrosse kid so he experienced stuff that way but my point is

they're both well-rounded young men at least I think they are they're doing well and I think a large part of that is because of what they experience at school and all those lessons they learned how to be coachable how to show up on time how to be ready to work when you show up those are all skills and unfortunately

a lot of the gamer kids aren't exposed to because a lot of high schools and other things don't have those kind of activities for them to do. Yeah. So they're just kind of filtering around, right? They're on the fringes. Esports captures those kids that are just kind of on the fringes.

Just my head is full of statistics. Yeah. They're in New York State alone. There are between 500,000 and 600,000 students who do not participate in any after-school activity. Really? So that's a half a million students. Yeah.

That do not participate in any school activities. So those are the kids that are not experiencing everything they need to experience to be successful later on, right? They're missing all that, those soft skills. You know, they learn, they're usually pretty good at the technical stuff, you know, but all those soft skills, they're kind of missing out on because they're not involved in it because they go to school. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more.

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This is your sign. Start free at RSS.com. Sometimes. And they get good grades sometimes. And they just kind of do their thing. They're just on the fringes. And honestly, I was one of those kids in school. I didn't play traditional sports. And I had a small friend group.

I didn't do much. I went home and rode my bike a lot. You know, that's what we did back then. Yep. But now because kids go home and play games, they're comfortable there and that's okay. Getting them out of their comfort zone, getting them involved with other people,

you know, and learning how to interact with people is a big thing. Because when you go to college, you've got to learn that because you're in the mix. You're not in high school anymore. Your professors are not looking over your shoulders saying, no, you need to redo this, you need to redo that.

You hand in your paper you get an F. The professor says, better luck next time. Yep. Right? And you're responsible. on your own, you're in the dorm room. Yep.

Nobody's, your mom isn't shaking you to wake you up. You know, the bus is around the corner. Yep. So being involved with stuff like this, and not just esports, any after-school activity. Yeah. Makes kids better students and they learn employable skills too. I love it.

So tell me what gives you the most hope about the future of what you're building at elite gaming. Hmm. I hope that we're making a difference. to some kids. Yeah. And I hope that that eventually the tides will turn

in video games, playing video games won't be looked down upon. It'll be looked not even superior, but just on the same level as a lot of other activities, you know? Yeah. Because, I mean, you know, you play video games. People, when you tell people, oh, yeah, I was playing battlefield

last night, like, oh. Right. Nerd. you know or you know I was playing balder's gate or whatever you're into you know um there's still that negative stigma so hopefully we can change that too but more importantly I hope that we can help kids find their place find their where they're comfortable at and really excel and do well and like every parent wants their kids to be happy healthy excited, make a good living, and be a productive member of society. And if we can do that through

what we're doing at elite, I'm all for it. That is fantastic, Rob. I truly, I wish you did this a little bit sooner when I was in school, but, you know, I get that a lot. I get that a lot. I think being envious of it is, hopefully it's a compliment. So before, before I let you go, I have to do this to you. Sure. I came up with a few questions last night. Just five questions. And I want to do kind of a rapid fire thing. I didn't print these out for my note card, so I apologize.

That's right. Go for it. So just off the top of your head. Are you ready? Yeah. What is the best video game of all time? According to Rob. Shoo.

Well, long answer is I have the best memories playing with my boys. Okay. So, and we probably played Sly Cooper. Sly Cooper. Yep. Okay. Sly Cooper. Yep.

In fact, I was just at, I'm getting the name wrong, mega, who's Alex is in Sun's place? Oh, Megaton games. I was just there. Earlier this week, I bought a PS3 disc with all three of the Sly Cooper games on it. Nice. And I'm going to do them again. I love it. Number two, Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo?

What do you prefer? I'm a PlayStation guy. PlayStation guy? PlayStation guy. Always have been. I've had a PS1 all the way to now PS5. Really? Yeah.

I've never, and I have access to PCs, but. I was waiting for you to say PC Master Race. No. No, yeah. Number three, what matters more? Gameplay or graphics? You're a gameplay guy or does it got to look really pretty? Wow.

Graphics grab me first when I'm watching a trailer or a screenshot. Yep. But the gameplay, I think, is more important. I love it. The graphics grab you. Yeah. The game, but if the gameplay is crap, I'm on to the next game. Yep.

Two more. Tekken, Mortal Kombat, or Street Fighter? I got to go Street Fighter because I played it in the arcades growing up. Yeah. And on the cabinets, man. So you're an OG. Yeah. it. Yeah, I suck at it. I'm horrible at it. My muscle memory is not good at all. I even screw up now when I'm playing battlefield or whatever. I'll go to reload, but now I've got a rocket launch around my shoulder. I'm horrible at that stuff because those type of games I'm horrible at. I love it. I'm terrible, too. It's fine. What game franchise has the most toxic fan base?

Oh, geez. it's a big one there's two yeah there's two that stand out to me i want to say i want to say call duty okay and and fortnight fortnight okay dude yeah and yeah it gets a little sweaty it gets it gets it gets toxic man it does you know but to back up a little bit too and part of what we're doing at elite too not to get back into that but absolutely we teach teach kids how to be responsible digital citizens. Yeah. So there's no toxicity allowed.

It's so important. It is. Yeah. We're slowly changing the culture because now we're actually, another big thing we do is we help school districts start e-sports programs. Yeah. We do everything. We go in and they sell us, here's a classroom. We want an e-sports program.

We design everything from the floor up. Wow. We sell them the chairs, the desks, the PCs, the consoles, monitors, heads, gaming mice, whatever. Yep. And then after that, we help them build the program the proper way. Nice. Because there's been a lot of schools that have tried it.

You know, they hopped on that trend. Yep. They fell right on their face because they didn't know what they were doing. Usually a teacher was kind of voluntold that you're the, you're the esports coach. Hey, nerd. Come over here. Right. That's exactly what happened. Bill, you know Mario Kart, right?

Yeah. Right. That's exactly what happened. And again, gamers, in that generation, you know, the teaching generation, 30s or something like that, they didn't grow up being part of a team again, right? So they don't know the team dynamics. So that's what we do is we help them get started. We help them be successful.

We have support for the teachers, the coaches. Yeah. And we actually have one-on-one or digital coaching for the students. Really? Yep. And then we have reporting back to the administration. and we really make sure it's successful. The analogy I use with schools is like if they don't have a football program

and they decide to start a football program and you pull up with a truckload of helmets and pads and then say, drive off and say good luck. That's exactly what schools are doing when they buy computer equipment. Because you can buy computer equipment anywhere. Yeah. You go to Amazon and buy computers, right? I mean, it's everything afterwards to engage the students. and to run a structured program, and that's where they start seeing the benefits.

If they're just showing up and playing games like they do at home, what's the point? Right. School administrators kind of lose interest. Teachers lose interest. They get burnt out. And then the program fizzles out. Next thing you know, the secretary has an alienware computer on their desk, right? You know, because they're like, what do we do with these things?

And that's not exaggerating. That has happened. I've seen it. I believe it. I walk into the reception office. and there's an alienware computer and she's doing Microsoft Word. Yeah. Outlook.

This outlook screams on this thing. So we're there to help school districts get started and do it the right way because you can do it the wrong way. Yeah. Really quickly. And now we're, sorry. No. And now we're getting into a STEM, CTE, and AI programming that the schools can do with their gaming PC.

Really? Could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. AI is the big, that's a huge buzzword right now. I feel like a lot of people want AI, but they don't know exactly what AI is. Right. Yeah. We like robots.

We don't like robots. What do we do? Yeah. So there's actually, there's several game development AI tools right now. Yeah. Where a student can go in and write some prompts. And literally the. AI will develop the game for them.

Wow. And then what the exciting part is is then they get the gameplay, right? They type some prompts and they say, I want to do a parkour, you know, Minecraft style parkour course with this, this and this. Yeah. AI generates that for them. Then they get to play it. And they say like, okay, well, but then here's the exciting part is you, then you

task the student and like, well, do you think, you know, how come you don't have a starting line? Do you need a timer? do you need this? You know, so what the AI does, it takes away all the mundane, you know, Python programming and stuff, you know? But it lets them concentrate on being creative.

Nice. The gameplay, right? Like we talked about. Yep. Not so much the graphics in the environment. That'll come later. Yep. It's more about the logic and the gameplay, right?

Nice. So you're kind of, you're kind of programming. You're kind of doing those if-then statements, but you're not actually typing them out. It reminds me of the old typing. games that they would train little kids like a K through third you'd have to type out the words. It's like a

more advanced version of that so they're learning those skills without actually thinking about it. Right, right. That's fantastic. I mean, because realistically, I mean, if we haven't wanted to be perfectly transparent computer science, computer programmers, those kind of jobs are going to be definitely affected by AI.

Right? So for being honest, that's the way it is. But they're not predicting that AI is going to be, as creative as humans are. They're not going to know how other humans want to interact with a game. Right? Yep.

They just do what they're told. Yeah. Right? So there's always going to be a place for that. Yeah. So it's more of an AI augmented type thing than just AI doing game development. Yeah.

Right? And there's going to need to be a workforce to do that, you know? Yeah. It's just like the analogy, you know, People are, you know, really scared of AI and, you know, and rightfully so in some degree, you know, it's valid. But, you know, the same thing can be said about, you know, when Henry Ford started making cars. That's true. People were petrified of those.

Yeah. Horse market went downhill. Right. Literally. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And, you know, all the, all this industry around horses, equine.

Yep. Gone. Literally almost overnight. Yep. As soon as Ford got that factory running. Yeah. So, you know, there's going to be another shift. It's going to be a pretty seismic shift.

Yeah. But I think kids that are embracing technology, and those are our esports kids, embracing technology, learning about it, doing it the right way, are going to be successful, right? And gamers are three times more likely to become engineers than not gamers, right? So it's just the way our brains work, right? Yeah. You know? And I've heard that story time and time and time again.

You know, we get a parent coming in and say, oh, yeah, my older son, he's an engineer or he does this or he's an architect or whatever. He goes, yeah, but he's a gamer. Yeah. He's still games with his buddies at night. So I think, you know, AI, it, nobody really knows for sure where it's going. Yeah. But I think the kids that are more technically oriented and are encouraged to be technically,

know, to learn the basics, right? So that's what we're there for to do is build that foundation. Yeah. You know, build a solid foundation. So when they go off to school or sometimes they can go right to the job market of some of the skills. Yeah. They have a good foundation to work off of. Absolutely.

I mean, you're providing them the tools, you know. I think that's one of the most important things is getting involved in it at the ground level, you know, versus, you know, 20 years from now. I was like, ah, no, I never bothered to learn that AI stuff. Right. You know, kind of use it or lose it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Rob, is there anything else that we didn't talk about that you would like to mention,

any events that are happening or anything you want to bring up? Well, this weekend, I don't know when this is going to air, but... Air tonight. Oh, really? Okay, great. Yeah. So this Sunday, we have one of our high school invitations. Nice.

So we have high school. We have over 100 students coming in from different high schools. all over Central New York. We're doing smash, Rocket League, and Fortnite, but we also have some teams coming to do some scrimmages for rivals and maybe Madden, I think, like that too. So it's great to get the kids together. You know, they're competing online in their own school districts,

but it's great to get them together. They can meet each other. They've been playing each other for a little while now. Yeah. They can meet each other. And, dude, the friendships are just instant. Oh, I bet. They're absolutely instant.

I saw this really cool dynamic a few years ago. We have a Syracuse City School student, in fact, the one that's being recruited by S.U. Smash player. And we had a school come from Central Square. Yep. Right? My alma mater, by the way. Nice. Go Red Hawks.

And the demographics couldn't be more different. The social economic couldn't be more different. You know, up in Brewerton and Central Square, there's cows and corn up there. Yeah. You know, down here, not so much, right? they met each other for the first time. Within five minutes, they're sitting on the couch, playing Super Smash, talking, talking about characters, having a good time.

Instant connection. And I found out later they exchange gamer tags. So now they compete against each other on a regular basis. They play. Nice. So that's what gaming really is, you know, and it's great to see that. And kids on the spectrum tend to gravitate towards gaming. Yep.

So we're giving them a cool space to hang out and be part of something. Yeah. And then, you know, of course, kids with certain physical disabilities can still participate, too. So that's what's really cool about it. You know, that's another cool factor about it. I love it. You are making a difference in Syracuse. And thank you so much for doing that.

I mean, it truly is cutting edge. Thanks. Yeah. It's been a fun ride. It's been a great ride. And the exciting part is we're kind of just getting started. I love it. You know, there's so many, like, just for instance, high schools that don't have esports programs.

You know, only about 20% in New York State of the 700-something New York State have esports programs. So we're really excited about the future of that. And it's getting easier to talk to adults and teachers and admins about e-sports. You know, three years ago, four years ago, I was like, hmm, gaming. at school right algebra we want more algebra

but I think they're realizing now that gaming is a great conduit to get kids attention and get them

engaged right that's all it is it's just another way to get kids engaged with school and the population of gamers in school

70% of the students walking the hallways in middle school and high school play games play video games whether it's on their phone or their switch or their PC or whatever the culture is there the population is there let's grab those kids that are kind of you know just again floating around yeah let's get them engaged let's get them excited and see what happens i love it rob thank you so much for coming on and truly appreciate it thanks for having me man this is awesome absolutely i love the set here oh thank you

This is, this is, I feel like I'm at home. It's good. I'm glad. This feels like home, man. This is awesome. Yeah, welcome to my basement. All right. Well, thank you again.

And anytime you have anything coming on, feel free to let us know and we'll get you on Good News York. We'll do, man. Love it. All right. And thank you for tuning in to Good News York. I've been Danny Tripote and I'll see you next time. I've been Danny Tripote. What the fuck.