WYLDE: Inside Usain Bolt's Cork city academy pushing competitive gaming into the mainstream

In three years, Irish esports has been turned from a blank piece of paper to an all-island community, enabling home-grown talent to compete for big money across the globe 

Rocket League Team Ireland members (from left) Liam Doocey, Thomas Daly and Jack Dixon in the WYLDE Academy, powered by Virgin Media, in the Republic of Work, Cork.

What do video gaming, competition training and eight-time Olympic Gold Medallist, Usain Bolt have in common? They are all connected here in Cork city at the headquarters of WYDLE – Ireland’s first professional e-sports organisation – where players at the top of their respective games work and train together to compete for cash prizes across global tournaments.

Founded in 2021, WYLDE was born at a time when competitive gaming was rapidly establishing itself as a form of mainstream entertainment, with co-founder and chief executive, Steve Daly being tasked with cultivating this spectacle and establishing Ireland’s first esports academy, which, as Mr Daly puts it, “was a blank piece of paper,” at the time.