On this episode of the Bourbon Friday Show, we had the opportunity to talk to Austin Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Mission Control.

Mission Control—Game Leagues for Friends

Within the past few years esports and online gaming have become more and more similar to traditional sports play including elite teams and high dollar earnings from professional gaming tournaments.

And while those types of events have put esports on the map, what about the people who play videogames recreationally and not for millions of dollars?

That’s where Mission Control comes in.

“Mission Control is a platform for rec league esports,” says Smith. “There’s a lot of stuff out there for the competitive side, the professional amateur, even varsity levels—but where we are is below all of that—the recreation side, we care about the people are just playing for the casual, social fun of it.”

Currently, Mission Control mainly partners with organizations that already offer some type of recreational sports league (soccer, basketball, etc.).

“We work with a lot of rec leagues of course; it’s not too far off to say ‘Hey, just try adding esports’.”

Organizations can choose their different esports offerings from the Mission Control platform, and then the people who want to join the league download the app (available on iOS and Android).

From the app, players are able to join the organization they are playing through and choose the game they want to play. They can also get their schedule as well as have the opportunity to reschedule matches if a certain time doesn’t work for them.

If you would like to get a league started or find one near you, you can go to https://missioncontrol.gg/ for more information.

Bourbon Innovation

As always, the Bourbon Friday team does their best to choose a fitting drink for the occasion.

The bottle this week was Old Charter 8. This bottle, made by Buffalo Trace Distillery, bears resemblance to a fictitious whiskey in the StarCraft II video game. The creators of this game are from the Blizzard Entertainment company who has produced very popular video games such as World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Diablo.