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One university is adding "League of Legends" to its athletics program.

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kyrax12

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http://www.businessinsider.com/league-of-legends-scholarship-2014-6

Professional video game players make a ton of money; the top players in the world raking in millions playing at various tournaments. And now Robert Morris University Illinois wants to prep students on their journey to becoming video game playing superstars.
The school announced today that it's adding eSports to its athletic program. And more specifically, the school is building a varsity team to play "League of Legends" as part of the Collegiate Star League, which has 103 teams from other universities competing.
"Robert Morris University has always been at the forefront of providing opportunities for a diverse student population with different interests and skills," said RMU's Athletic Director Kurt Melcher in a statement. "'League of Legends' is a competitive, challenging game which requires significant amount of teamwork to be successful."
RMU will also be the first university to offer students scholarships based on previous experience playing "League of Legends." Gamers can earn scholarships of up to 50% tuition and 50% room and board, which comes out to around $20,000 per student.
The college is looking to fill around 19 player spots, with around 8 or 9 of them being on a varsity team, according to VentureBeat; the school has already received around 400 inquiries over the last few days.
"We give scholarships for a variety of different interests, along with traditional sports like football, basketball, soccer. So we thought, 'Why wouldn't we give scholarships for this?'," Melcher told IGN.
eSports is quickly gaining in popularity as a legitimate sport. Last year the United States began recognizing eSports players as professional athletes by offering them visas. Players not only make money by winning tournaments, but also by being sponsored by big names, such as Coca-Cola.
And "League of Legends" is huge in the competitive gaming world. Around 8.5 million people live-streamed the world championship in October. Players make close to $1 million per year.
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Seems cool! Since I am a gamer.
 
You'll probably get lots of whiners claiming that anything which is not purely physical and where the players (as well as a lot of the fans) actually have an IQ over 80 can't be called a sport.
 
Skyclad1uhm1 said:
You'll probably get lots of whiners claiming that anything which is not purely physical and where the players (as well as a lot of the fans) actually have an IQ over 80 can't be called a sport.
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Well there are terms for that.

It is E-sports.

The athletes for E-sports are called Cyber Athletes.
 
This is a fantastic illustration of why athletic scholarships are terrible ideas.

Good for them on the team though, I see no harm in that.
 
does the athletic program include chess and such other games

otherwise they should put e-sports in the same academic program as chess and scientific competitions
 
Ruptga said:
This is a fantastic illustration of why athletic scholarships are terrible ideas.

Good for them on the team though, I see no harm in that.
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agree

college scholarships are not what universities should focus most of their resources on

colleges and universities are becoming too corrupted with money and politics

the possible problem is that many americans might be infatuated too much with their shallow cultural whims to bring much pressure for this issue to clean up

they are probably going to continue support for the schools to continue this charade and the wasting of taxpayer dollars on consumerism and tribe politics
 
Aren't the scholarships only available because of boosters and/or the fact that the program does or could make the college/university money? It's not like they're getting the equivalent of a SEC football scholarship down here. It's only a 50% scholarship, and they're probably not giving that many out.
 
Aikouka said:
Aren't the scholarships only available because of boosters and/or the fact that the program does or could make the college/university money? It's not like they're getting the equivalent of a SEC football scholarship down here. It's only a 50% scholarship, and they're probably not giving that many out.
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seems the ncaa gives out lots of scholarships supported off "revenue" derived from college athletics programs and the associated culture
 
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