E-sports Teams in Universities

In the past few years, video games have taken off significantly in popularity. What started off as a pastime for many individuals has now turned into a billion dollar industry that holds multi-million–dollar–tournaments each year. They hold large tournaments in iconic arenas such as TD Garden in Boston, the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, and even Madison Square Garden of New York City. People were skeptic when they first started hearing about playing video games as a profession. People were laughing when they first heard the term “E-sports, calling it “ridiculous and saying that it shouldn’t be considered” a sport. Kenny Smith, former NBA player and current ESPN analyst, once famously stated that “I don’t think that [E-sports] is a sport.” Despite these doubts, there is no denying that e-sports are gaining immense popularity: The largest e-sports tournament of 2018 was the Dota 2 tournament called the International 2018, with 14 million viewers and a prize pool of more than 25 million USD.  

Recently, universities have started recognizing e-sports players and organizing varsity e-sports teams for games such as League of Legends, Dota 2, and CSGO. Prominent universities such as UC Berkeley, USC, and UCLA have all created varsity e-sports teams and competed against other big universities with e-sports teams, just like traditional sports. These players train every day just like traditional sport teams, and universities {have even started to build or have} built dedicated arenas inside their campus for their e-sport athletes. They also have a full support staff including a team analyst and a team manager, just like traditional sports teams. In addition to this, some universities, such as UC Irvine, are startingto offer scholarships to e-sports athletes and even started scouting potential high school players to offer them scholarships to play for them.

Marco L., an avid gamer, “[likes] what they are doing. [He] thinks that this opens up a new path as a profession for many people who are talented at gaming. Big name universities making e-sports teams can hopefully encourage other big name universities to also create a team, making e-sports even bigger. Players like Sumail (a Dota 2 player) show that this can make you a living, as when he was 15 years old he won over a million dollars from a single tournament.”

David S., a former AISG student, also agrees with Marco L., saying: “I don’t see why this didn’t happen earlier. I view e-sports just like traditional sports and traditional sports have been in universities for decades. This is great for the e-sports scene, which is already huge, and hopefully many more people will catch onto this trend.”

However, Robbie H. thinks that “e-sports or whatever is only a fad. It will fade out in a few years and these universities will realize that they made a mistake. I also enjoy playing video games, but they are only video games and shouldn’t be made into a competition. They were made for leisure so that people could pass time.” When Jacky L. was asked about his opinions on universities adopting e-sports teams and making this a profession, he just laughed, and then he walked away.

It is clear that in 2018, e-sports has blown up to a multi billion dollar industry, which has even got universities creating e-sports teams to compete against other teams, and even offer scholarships to be on these e-sports rosters. Whether this is just a fad is yet to be determined, however, at least for now, e-sports is in full effect.