colleges giving scholarships to Esports

[konjo78]

I know this isn't a thing yet but this past week a college in Chicago a college announced they are going to start offering scholarships for Esports, specifically league of legends. This is a topic id love to see feedback from this community about.

For me personally this only makes sense financially as league of legends Esports is widely viewed around the country, around 1 million viewers a week. Now do I think its athletics? No but I do see it as competitive gaming which is the same category as pro sports and colleges to try and encourage players to take scholarships for it is only good for bothnparties. 1 it allows players who qualify not only to play the game but get the education for after their career. Schpols get to start dipping into a market full of monetary potential and esports become more legitimate and stable.



Anyways what is everyones thought on this issue? I fully expect more, larger colleges and universities to start this as well; so the issue wont go away soon.

[PLDragons24]

Well league of legends is now an official Olympic sport so why wouldn't they start recruiting players to their schools? Competitive gaming has been building up for a long time now wether it's a good thing or not. It's only going to continue to grow from here.

[El-Moldo]

Are these athletic scholarships or academic scholarships? I thought colleges were dropping alot of athletic scholarships for men so that women's scholarships could match up in number. After all, men's wrestling, golf, tennis, etc scholarships are being dropped everywhere.

[konjo78]

Are these athletic scholarships or academic scholarships? I thought colleges were dropping alot of athletic scholarships for men so that women's scholarships could match up in number. After all, men's wrestling, golf, tennis, etc scholarships are being dropped everywhere.

Athletic scholarships moldo. but it would only be 5-10 scholarships for a program so balance isnt as hard as other sports

Edit: also it would probably be a bisexual sport. There is no sex restrictions for the game do that may avoid title IX a bit weirdly. That being said there has only been a couple professional female players but for college teams recently there has been numerous female starters on club teams

[Crimson's Ghost]

What is esports?

[PLDragons24]

Esports are just competitive video gaming

[konjo78]

What is esports?

Esports is what most people would call competitive video gaming. What is now separating it from that is the new rush of team games that 1 have no story point and 2 only objective is PVP match with the only point is winning.


The most popular game by far is league of legends: a game that has a dozen or so pro leagues set up across the world. The objective in this game is a 5v5 mode where teams get objectives, kills and more to win the game by destroying the other teams base. That's the nerdy version of it but really it's a 5v5 game that requires extreme reaction times and and hand eye coordination, a very strong understanding of the game and the ability to work as a team to succeed. The reason they stick to Esport as a term is because people consider it an Electronic sport.


Some of these esports scenes are highly competitive, attracts large amount of viewers and is a large demographic for companies to target with Ads. To put it into perspective the league of legends world finals last year in its 3rd year of existence pulled 32 million total viewers with an average of 8 million watching at one time. That was huge growth from the previous year when they had only 8 million viewers and 1 million average at the any time. I need to find the links but some experts are expecting season 4 worlds in fall to be in the top 5 most watch sporting events this year at around 60+ million viewers and 20 million watching at any point

[konjo78]

this video link is the coverage HBO did this winter on Esports if others were interested. 14 minutes

[El-Moldo]

What about chess or pinball machines. Need a lot of skill for them, right? Males and females can both compete.

[konjo78]

Pretty sure chess gives out scholarships... As for pinball well it doesn't attract viewers that rival pro sports so it might not be high up on the priority list