A surprise announcement was made before a live panel at Georgia’s Live Gaming Esports Summit on Thursday morning. Todd Harris, CEO of Skillshot Media, officially announced the unique case study and partnership with Entertainment Tourism Alliance of Georgia (ETAG), and the University of Georgia. The case study is slated to begin in January with select Graduate students from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business working with Entertainment Tourism Alliance of Georgia and Skillshot Media on a specific tourism and workforce development impact study. The case study is anticipated to be released before April 2024.
Skillshot Media is a leading entertainment event production company headquartered in Atlanta. “It is a pleasure to serve in an integral partnership role with this case study. Skillshot Media will support the initiative by gathering tourism and workforce development data from live events across Georgia in the areas of videogaming, esports, digital media, and pop-culture,” stated Harris. “With film and television getting so much focus, Georgians do not realize the tremendous opportunity for economic impact from this sector of entertainment. This industry worldwide is over $200B and growing rapidly. That is larger than television, film and music combined. There is untapped potential for continued workforce development and tourism.”
David Sutherland, professor at the University of Georgia, added, “An area of focus for our graduate students is the Creative Economy, of which eSports and Videogaming are now major economic contributors. We’re excited to be working with ETAG and Skillshot to better understand these fast growing and ever-changing creative industries.”
The Entertainment Tourism Alliance of Georgia was founded in August of 2023 to focus solely on data collection, workforce development and optimization of entertainment tourism opportunities in the State of Georgia. “It is exciting to launch this first case study focused on entertainment tourism impact with two extremely credible partners. ETAG wants to see every community in Georgia benefitting from the tremendous growth in entertainment and overall creative arts. We are supporting the hospitality industry, the destination marketing organizations/convention and visitor bureaus, municipalities, and others who want to ensure growth in the creative arts is maximized through collaboration,” stated Lynda Lee Smith, ETAG founder/chairperson.
Major event representatives were present for the live announcement from DreamHack Atlanta, MomoCon, Brawlhalla World Championship who were there discussing 2024 events to be held in Georgia.
More information: www.EntertainmentTourism.com
