Wichita Wolves named official esports team of the city. They have even bigger plans
There is now an official esports team of Wichita.
The Wichita Wolves were proclaimed the city’s official esports team by Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple in Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
Since Dylan Reese formed the club in 2019, the Wolves have been playing in amateur and semi-professional tournaments across the country. According to Reese, the Wolves have won 25 championships and placed in the top three a total of 43 times since 2020.
Tuesday’s proclamation is the first step in legitimizing the Wolves and what Reese hopes is the first step in becoming a professional team and putting Wichita on the map in the esports world.
“We’ve had zero recognition until now,” Reese told The Eagle. “This announcement makes us one of the first esports organizations to be the official team of their city. Our goal is to eventually become the first professional team in Wichita’s history. We want to be the Kansas City Chiefs of esports, if you will.”
Esports, competitive video gaming, is a billion-dollar industry. And just like there are different professional leagues in basketball, football and soccer, there are different professional leagues in esports for each video game title.
For example, there’s the Rocket League Championship Series, the League of Legends World Championships and the Overwatch League. You name the video game, there’s probably a league for it.
The Wolves compete under 13 different video game titles, as different players compete in different video games — but all under the Wolves name. Reese hopes to join a professional league in either Rocket League, League of Legends or Rainbow Six Siege by the end of the year.
Top esports competitions worldwide have routinely attracted a greater audience than the Super Bowl. After watching esports take off in nearby Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Reese wanted to do the same thing in Wichita.
“We wanted a piece of that pie for our city,” Reese said. “It’s huge that we now can have an esports team that Wichitans can cheer on and root for in these competitions. It seems like we’re a year or even three or four behind other cities, so hopefully the Wolves can be the fuel to the fire to Wichita becoming one of these esports hubs.”
Now that the Wolves have the title of being Wichita’s official esports team, Reese hopes to find a permanent home for his players to compete in and eventually host esports competitions. To make that happen, the Wolves will need to attract advertising and a capital investment from a potential owner in their quest to become a professional esports team.
With the Wichita Board of Education recently approving more than a half-million dollars to fund esports in Wichita public schools and the growing popularity of the Wichita State esports team, Reese sees the momentum swelling in the city.
“I think the Wichita Wolves are going to be a really good spear-point for the city,” Reese said. “I think with the tournaments and competitions we’ll be competing in and hosting, we’ll be able to bring in a lot of tourism dollars to the city and keep Wichita teenagers here in the city to play for us. I know if they would have had an esports team in Wichita when I was a kid, I would have gone to all of their games and watched.”
This story was originally published April 13, 2021 at 2:22 PM.
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