Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan just signed a bill approved by the Jacksonville City Council to give $3 million to fund the University of North Florida’s new center for online gaming.
UNF is naming it the “Flight Deck,” which it said will be an esports arena meant to both provide more resources to students and host gaming competitions on campus.
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The university hopes the facility will bring more students to the school to pursue careers in engineering, gaming, and other fields of science and technology to help meet its goal of having 25,000 students by 2028.
Deegan said the city’s funding for the university goes far beyond the video games, hoping it’ll level up local businesses.
RELATED: Jacksonville City Council approves innovative esports arena at UNF
“In terms of esports, you’re talking about billions of dollars that we could be attracting here to Jacksonville and that’s what we want to do,” Deegan said.
Some reports say the esports industry is expected to grow to more than $6.3 billion by 2030, which is one of the main reasons the city is signing off on the money for the university.
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City leaders also hope it’ll give an upgrade to the number of local jobs available to students graduating from UNF. The university said 70% of them stay in Northeast Florida for work.
“When you’re helping to provide the eyeballs and you’ll have events that bring in people from all over the world to Jacksonville, that helps our local economy, that helps us bring money into our local economy,” Deegan said.
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Here’s some of what UNF says its new esports center will include:
- 42 computer gaming stations
- Built-in stage for competitions, live tournaments, and team play
- Broadcast studio space for live streaming of gaming
- Play zone for gaming consoles
- Connection to neighboring auditorium for gaming events
UNF hasn’t yet shared a date for the expected opening of the esports center but said it’s signing the contract to start the work this week.
Both the university and the city, in their joint briefing held at the UNF campus, expressed interest in future funding possibilities for esports programs at the university.
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