On a hot and humid Saturday in July of last year, Matt Lucido left his Brooklyn Airbnb and began to make his way towards the Barclays Center. The 20,000 seat arena was sold out ahead of the afternoon’s big matchup, so naturally he wanted to get there early.  

He talked some trash with a couple of guys sporting Los Angeles gear on the way there and eventually made his way into the arena. Starting lineups were announced and the players took their positions as game time drew near.

Lucido sat on the edge of his seat, surrounded by his friends, analyzing every move made during the match. Being one of the top players in the world himself, Lucido is always looking to learn from the pros so he can figure out the little details that will make him better.

“I’m always trying to improve faster than the rest of the player base,” he affirms.

As the game inches closer and closer to its end, every fan in the jam-packed Barclays Center tenses. Replays of mistakes and heroic plays are broadcast on the big screen that’s hanging on the wall, and just like that, an entire season comes to an end. The London Spitfire have defeated the Philadelphia Fusion to win the inaugural season of one the most successful esports leagues in the world: the Overwatch League.

The opening season of the Overwatch League performed unexpectedly well, earning over $1 billion in revenue. Similarly, Lucido, Northeastern’s Overwatch team captain and president, began his foray into video games in an equally surprising fashion.

“Actually I was in the hospital,” recalls Lucido. “I had a pretty serious accident and the bed I was in was hooked up with a Nintendo 64 and I was playing Super Mario thinking, ‘This is the coolest thing ever’.”

Lucido has come a long way from his first-ever video game, and now occupies a rare echelon of gamer as one of the top 500 players in the world of the online game Overwatch.

Overwatch is a 6 vs. 6 team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game, developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment in 2016. Since then, the game has gained a traction of over 40 million unique players across both console and PC platforms.

In 2018, Blizzard launched an ambitious professional league based around the game. The Overwatch League, or OWL, began with 12 city-based franchises. Each franchise cost $20 million to purchase and parties like Comcast and the Kraft Group, owned by Robert Kraft, quickly bought teams. People like Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke and New York Mets COO Jeff Wilpon also invested in teams. Northeastern as a whole certainly feels the same, and in 2017 established an esports student organization.

The club is complied of both casual and competitive players. There are different teams amongst the club for games like Fortnite, Rocket League, CSGO, Hearthstone and Overwatch. The competitive teams for each game play against colleges around the country and across varying leagues for titles and prize money.

Lucido says the team usually practices two times a week and plays their matches on Sunday nights during the season. He says he usually plays around 25 hours of the game a week.

The team travels throughout the Northeast to compete in local area network (LAN) tournaments during the year and also competes in an online Blizzard-organized collegiate gaming league called TESPA, which runs from January through April.

“We’ve never lost a LAN tournament,” says Lucido. “At one point last year we were third in TESPA, too. We ended seventh, and this season I think we’re going to be top five.”

The opportunity surrounding esports found its way up the Northeastern Athletics ladder, piquing the curiosity of athletic director Jeff Konya.

“There’s a lot of interest in esports and gaming technology. In a business sense, I think it’s an industry that’s projected to grow quite rapidly,” Konya said.

While Northeastern is just getting its esports presence off the ground at a club level, other schools have been all-in on the economic potential of esports, and more specifically, Overwatch.

“Esports for college used to be buddies from class come together and play games. Now it’s almost like an arms race,” emphasizes Lucido. “A lot of central US schools are giving full-ride scholarships to European professional players. Maryville has a full-pro team and Harrisburg just dropped $400,000 on a team and coach.”

This may seem like a risky business at first glance, but if the monetary success of the first OWL season is anything to go off of, the risk may be minimal. OWL has garnered sponsors from expected electronic companies like Intel and HP, but additionally boast sponsorship from Toyota, Coca Cola and T-Mobile.

Viewership of the first season was unprecedented. Over 400 thousand people across the globe tuned in to the streaming platform Twitch for the opening matches, and the grand finals were broadcast nationally in the U.S. on both ABC and ESPN.

Konya was quick to highlight how he feels about the impending growth of esports and how it relates to the school: “With the DNA of Northeastern it’s something that aligns really well with being on the forefront of a changing environment and a changing landscape.”

He adds, “We have to keep evaluating our option in the marketplace. What’s going to make sense to our students to participate in a competition? Are there conference affiliations down the road? Are there national associations that are going to navigate this rapidly changing environment?”

Season two of OWL kicked off in early February and has already shown marked improvements from season one. In addition to Twitch, matches are now also broadcast on ESPN3 and Disney XD. Eight teams were added to the league in the offseason, and the price of each team was reported to be between $30–$60 million.

“On paper, if Blizzard does everything right, it definitely has a ton of potential,” reiterates Lucido. “I think if the developer team [Blizzard] supports the league, it can go far.”

Lucido, a sophomore who comes from a background of soccer, basketball and tennis, says he’s eager for the future of Northeastern Overwatch Team.

“We’re a pretty young group,” he said. “I think the average year of our team is sophomore so I’m excited. I started recruiting aggressively when I became president and I can’t wait to see what some of our younger prospects have to offer.”

But for Lucido, the best thing about competing with the team is the community it organically creates.

“We’re very close. I mean it’s just like any other sport, if you spend that much time hanging out with other people obviously you’re going to become close.”

The team also provided him with a unique opportunity to create friends before even stepping foot on campus.

“While I was doing NUin in Australia I was already communicating with people on the team. I had so many connections and relationships once I came back.”

For him, emphasizing that feeling of community around esports is ultimately crucial. He urges all levels of video game fans to check out the NU esports club.

“Even if you just play games casually, definitely join our discord, join our community. It’s a super cool group of people.”

After watching a couple of Northeastern men’s basketball games, one thing becomes clear: Jordan Roland is a nightmare to guard. 

Players with his type of game-changing offensive talent are typically keen on letting everybody know how good they are. But when asked about the source of his offensive abilities, Roland was quick to answer, “It’s all because of the great system I’m in and guys finding me open looks.”

The six-foot-1 guard is a redshirt junior and transferred to Northeastern in 2017. But you wouldn’t know it was Roland’s first full year playing with the Huskies. His synergy with his teammates on both ends of the floor made it seem like he’s been around for a couple of seasons. 

Roland, a Syracuse, N.Y. native, began his collegiate career at George Washington University. But after two years with the Colonials, he decided it was time for something new. 

“There was a coaching change and a lot of guys were leaving,” Roland said. “I had talked with Northeastern during the first round of recruiting and when it was time for me to transfer I was sold on the school. I saw what they had done for T.J. Williams and thought they did a great job developing their guards.”

NCAA rules require transfer students to spend an academic year in residence at the school to which they’re transferring before competing. This meant Roland had to spend the entire 2017-18 season on the sidelines. 

Transfer students aren’t allowed to travel with their team to away games, which can be hard on players trying to assimilate into a new team culture. But for Roland, it provided a unique opportunity to recharge and get ahead of schoolwork.

“It was really relaxing actually. I had two weeks off for Christmas, when normally I would’ve only had four days. It was nice to go home on weekends during the season and allowed to me focus on school too.”

But when the 2018-19 season rolled around, he was ready to show his new team, and the rest of the country, just how prepared he was.

In just his second career game as a Husky, Roland showed everyone just how capable of a player he is: he erupted for 35 points on 69 percent shooting. In a performance that came to typify Roland’s ability to efficiently dominate any given matchup, he focused not on his more-than-respectable accomplishments, but instead on how he could improve.

“I actually remember having two early turnovers in that game,” he said. “I came off the bench and don’t even think I scored in the first ten minutes or so.”

Roland’s first basket in the game was a three that came with 5:12 left in the first half. The bucket gave the Huskies their first lead of the game since the opening bucket. They never trailed the rest of the way.

“It speaks, first and foremost, to his personality,” said head coach Bill Coen. “When he did score that 35, he came off the bench. There are a lot of guys that would let their egos get the best of them and limit their own production because they feel they’re being slighted. But Jordan is the type of guy who just wants to help the team anyway he can.”

After setting a program record with 101 three-pointers this season, Roland ranked in the top ten in the CAA in 3-pt percentage, free throw percentage, +/- and true shooting percentage. He was also second on the team in points produced. 

“In my opinion, Jordan Roland is one of the most efficient scorers in college basketball,” iterated Coen. “He’s an outstanding shooter and he combines that shooting ability and shooting range with elite quickness, which is a very rare combination.”

Roland’s tremendous offensive efficiency wasn’t just the opinion of his coach, however. For much of the season, Synergy Sports reported Roland’s offensive efficiency at around 1.22 points per game, just behind players like Zion Williamson of Duke and Brandon Clarke of Gonzaga.

Even more extraordinary is the performance level while Northeastern dealt with key injuries. Players like reigning CAA Defensive Player of the Year Shawn Occeus and First-Team All-CAA member Vasa Pusica missed big stretches this past year.

“When guys can’t play, of course you think you have to raise your play. But it’s more about how everyone on the team raises their play, not just one person,” highlighted Roland.

Moving forward, Roland echoed his same mindset of self-improvement and placing the team first. 

“My goal is to obviously go as far as possible. For me personally, it’s just to bring whatever I can to the team.”

With the year freshly in the books, Roland already has certain aspects of his game he’d like to work on before next year. 

“I want to improve as a ball handler and be able to find open guys better. I think that’ll really round out my game.”

Coen elaborated a similar attitude on Roland’s future.

“Going forward into next year, even greater things are in store for him,” he said. “We’ve asked him to handle the ball, to get into ball screens and to dribble, pass and shoot. I think he has accepted the challenge and excelled in his development.”

Hate it or love it, you know you just can’t take your eyes off Donald Trump’s twitter. If you had a nickel for every time someone came up to you and said, “did you see what he tweeted now” you’d be set to retire tomorrow. Trump’s twitter presence is unprecedented in the realm of politics. We as political consumers are used to our political leaders being somewhat distant. Typically, our elected leaders give blanketed statements on issues and generally keep their next move secret. You know the ones on CNN, NBC and ABC like, “the president and his staff are working on that now”. Statements that are broadcasted nationally and mean nothing, but reassure us nonetheless. However, after Trump’s successful, twitter-led presidential campaign, everyone was sort of left scratching their heads. Everyone except Marshall McLuhan that is.

Marshall McLuhan is arguably one of the most overlooked thinkers of our time. Mass amounts of people flocked to his lectures just to hear of snippet of what he had to say. Even people like John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol went out of their way just to hear a sound byte or two. He was a pioneer in understanding what media is and how it shapes our behavior, writing over twelve books on the subject. He even predicted the Internet some 35 years before the Internet came into existence. But when brought up in conversation, most people have no idea who he is.

Born in 1911 in Canada, McLuhan lived out his days as a professor, philosopher and most importantly a media theorist. He focused his writings and lectures on communication and how mediums and media transform our everyday life. He is famous for his identification of four distinct ages of human progress; the acoustic age, the written age, mass production (Fordism) and the electronic age. And while these categories may seem obvious and trivial, it’s important to keep in mind McLuhan foretold of the electronic age in the early 1960’s, just before it actually began. However, McLuhan is most famous for his concepts of a ‘global village’ and how ‘the medium is the message’. Both of which, are crucial in understanding why Trump’s twitter led presidential campaign was so successful, and what it means going forward.

But before we dive down that rabbit hole, it’s important to understand what those two concepts actually mean. McLuhan’s idea of a ‘global village’ is basically that of the Internet. He predicted that print culture (newspapers, books, pamphlets) would eventually be ousted by “electronic interdependence” and spoke about how technological extensions of our consciousness, would soon alter our social structure to one of a more unified culture. This may sound confusing, but when simplified, McLuhan is basically saying technology changes how we interact with one another, and that the Internet would bring us all closer than ever before, creating a ‘global village’. And he wasn’t wrong. The Internet has granted us the ability to see what’s happening anywhere in the world at anytime. You can look at tweets from a person from Germany in one tab, watch a live stream from Japan in another and simultaneously FaceTime your newborn nephew for the first time. McLuhan’s idea of a ‘global village’ has been realized, time and space have been compressed, and our interactions with one another will never be the same.

McLuhan’s ‘the medium is the message’ concept goes hand in hand with that of the ‘global village’. At its core, ‘the medium is the message’ means content is irrelevant, as the medium is what shapes and alters human behavior. In this situation, a medium refers to a means by which something is communicated or expressed. To support this idea McLuhan famously gives the example of the light bulb. In McLuhan’s eyes, a light bulb isn’t important because it gives off electricity, it’s important because of how it changed human interaction. With the invention of the light bulb, people could now do more at night. People could stay out at resturants and bars later, could work later into the night and simply do more. The light bulb changed how we behave. Take the television as another example. The actual shows on TV don’t matter to McLuhan, but it’s the physical TV that’s important. The TV allowed people to gather together for periods of time in a way that hadn’t existed before. If a family wanted to watch a show, they would’ve had to gone out to a theater, but because of the TV, they were now able to stay in. ‘The medium is the message’ is a crucial concept because it highlights the importance of media in social change.

So now onto Trump. What would media theorist Marshall McLuhan have to say about the President’s pioneering use of social media in politics? Well he’d probably say it was kind of obvious. Social media is the pinnacle of his global village idea, and Trump’s approach to employing social media as a political platform was only a matter of time. Twitter compresses space and time in such a way that our thoughts and ideas become crafted and written tweets for all to consume. By utilizing twitter and social media to promote political agendas, the global village just becomes a little bit tighter. Instead of waiting for statements given by PR reps on CNN, we all can see what our political leaders think about a topic in real time. And it’s become so, that if an elected official doesn’t respond to a statement or current event on social media in a timely manner, they may be seen as hiding something or evasive. Politics on twitter are just an example of the furtherance of the technological interconnectedness McLuhan foretold of.

But now what? Are we going to have to deal with even more tweets from politicians? Will Trump start doing briefings on Facebook live? What’s the next step in this interconnectedness? More tweets are most likely guaranteed in the future and as for the Facebook live…maybe? As for the next step in interconnectedness, we have to look to McLuhan’s second big idea ‘the medium is the message’. What we’ve learned so far about Trump’s success on twitter, is that it was due a lot to the fact that people thought it made him more transparent. And if there’s one thing that we want in our politicians, its transparency. So let’s say the medium of twitter made Trump, a presidential candidate, more transparent. Our interaction with and expectation of presidential candidates and politicians has now changed. Forget about what Trump’s tweets actually say, that’s not important. It’s the idea of him being visible, accessible and transparent that is. Never before have we been able to be this close with our President. The President has always been someone who was in the newspapers or on the television giving a statement that we couldn't directly respond to. But now we can literally tweet at him. That’s the message. We can interact with our President in real time. We can read his thoughts in real time. Trump’s prowess on twitter will forever change what we expect from our politicians on social media, not because of what he said, but because of how he said it.

Well what does this physically look like for next election or even the next next election? Who knows? Technology moves so fast that it’s hard to predict. Maybe there’ll be a campaign that’s even more rooted in twitter than Trump’s was. Maybe in an effort to achieve complete transparency, a candidate will wear a live stream body cam 24/7 (kind of like how Emma Watson’s character did in The Circle). Maybe in-person debates will be a thing of the past. McLuhan would say it’s all possible.