JPMorgan Chase celebrates black culture and our communities every day as we continue to celebrate Black History Month. Cheddar News is highlighting prominent Black Americans who are carving their own historic paths and trailblazing in their industries. Today we turn our focus to one leader helping shift the culture of amateur sports across the  U.S through esports. CEO and Founder of PlayVS, Delane parnell, joined Cheddar to discuss more.

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PlayVS Creates Esports Games for High Schools

Welcome back. This segment is brought to you by JPMorgan Chase celebrating black culture and our communities every day as we continue to celebrate Black History month. Cheddar news is highlighting prominent black americans who are carving their own historic paths and trailblazing in their industries. Today we turn our focus to one leader helping shift the culture of amateur sports Through the us across the us through e sports in particular. Back in 2018, Delane Parnell launched a platform called Play versus in collaboration with the National Federation of State high school Associations. The program has positioned itself to offer high school students across the country the opportunity to engage in e sport teams and state sanctioned competitive leagues joining us now to discuss more, the Ceo and founder of Play versus Delane parnell, delaying congratulations and welcome to the show. It's really good to have your perspective here. So a long time ago, people might have brushed you off a little bit for even considering bringing gaming into schools today. It's much more the norm. I talked to us about why you first decided to launch play versus what did you see that needed to be added to the school space? Yeah, no, but first off, it's uh, it's an honor to be here. Um, you know, when we first started play versus is we saw an opportunity to reach Um, you know, youth in a way that uh, that actually acknowledge and recognize them for passions um that they, that they had and weren't being organized in high school in the us, there are 16 million kids who actively go to high school. Only eight million however play sports and it's not because The other eight million is not interested In sports. It's because sports have limitations and primarily with respect to roster. And so with these sports, we have an opportunity through software to reach as many kids at an individual school as there's interest. And so we've seen programs on par with traditional sports, um, say 28 kids per school, which is, you know, one shy below where baseball is at 29 kids in programs as large as hundreds of kids per school. Um, and so, you know, outpacing every other traditional sports on the program size perspective. And so the sports gives us an opportunity to meet kids where they are and allow them to be recognized for their passions and a really productive, constructive and safe where, I mean, listen, I don't think I'm that old, but I can't imagine my school ever being hooked up with any type of gaming thing. Give me a sense on, on what these actual schools look like and what do, what our students, what are, what are young people finding themselves that they have access to now that maybe we, we didn't when we were their age. Yeah. And so, um, you know, uh, first off its scales across all schools, so public and private schools, um, you know, sort of all backgrounds and in class and status, um, you know, what it, what it looks like for for an average school, they build a program across a number of games. Some of the games in which we have the official license for, are games like League of Legends, Super smash bros, Rocky League et cetera. Um, so as a school builds a program across as many games as they have interest in, there are generally multiple coaches after the school, they go out and recruit kids across all classes. They play in two seasons every school year. So each season three or four months long a fall in a winter, fall and spring season. Excuse me. Uh, and the leaders themselves are organized either by state or regional, depending on where you live and what game you play. And you know, ultimately the combination even is either a state or regional championship. The best teams going on to play in the national championship. Uh, and we do that, you know, um, every, every school year and so competition last 9 to 10 months throughout the year inclusive of playoffs international event. We were now in our eighth season. So four total years of operating, um, thousands of schools are participating. Um, you know, with, you know, a ton of activity across the player ship level and the team level and we're excited to continue to grow. Yeah. And you should be congratulations. It's, it's absolutely awesome. Talk to me about the type of obstacles, pushback barriers to entry you received in trying to get a business like this off the ground, what do those early challenges look like? And I ask you more through the lens of just an entrepreneur trying trying to scrap this together because I think it's a really inspiring story for a lot of other people whether or not there even in the gaming space to learn about what some of those challenges can look like and how to overcome them. Yeah, I think that the most challenging aspect of building our business is rights acquisition. So you know, play versus is much like a Spotify or netflix. Uh, initially at least it is built on the idea that we have to work with third party sort of for profit developers to own the games. Um, and um, you know, through that we have to go out and partner with these publishers and convince them of the value, uh, that, um, you know, scholastic esports could offer to their strategic initiatives. Um, and, and you know, attain or obtain, um, you know, uh, commercial rights to be able to, you know, even add this layer on top of the, in game experience. So that in itself was pretty challenging. We've since at it over the past four years partnerships, official partnerships, much like how fanatics goes out and acquires rights with teams and leagues across traditional sports. We've added official partnerships with Activision electronic arts, Nintendo ceramics, riot games. We have some more partnerships to be announced within this quarter. Um, so every major game publisher in the country or in north America rather, um, to be their official partner for scholastic esports. Um, with our sort of primary products today, be in high school. And so I'm super proud of what we've done to, um, solve for that initial challenge and the validation that we've brought to the, to the space by getting all of the major publishers on board to um, you know, um, support this initiative. It's absolutely awesome delay before I let you go. You've also recently released a book called ahead of the game. What can readers expect from that? Well, I didn't release the book, but it was a biography written about me and the company in our community, the sort of built of high school esports through the lens of play versus it was written by, um, it was authored by a guy named Kevin Ryan who was an award winning journalist at inc magazine. And did, he also participated by writing the forward. Um, it's a really awesome read. If people want to learn about how play verses. Um, you know, how I built the business of play versus, and how the business impacts our community. We should certainly check it out. Um, you know, I've heard nothing but good things. Delane parnell, I've heard nothing but good things about you and the work that you've done here and congratulations and thank you so much for taking the time delaying the Ceo and founder of Play versus congratulations. I really appreciate your time tonight. JPMorgan Chase is committed to advancing racial and social equity, visit Jpmorgan Chase dot com slash a B. P. To learn more.