Gaming has always been a popular pass time to many. Thanks to streaming services such as Twitch, YouTube and Facebook, gamers are able to gain international viewers and earn an income, if they reach enough popularity. With this growing popularity, Colleges and Universities have recognized gaming as a sport, thus the name E-Sports.
Anyone who is familiar with Twitch, YouTube or Facebook, in the E-Sports community, are well aware of the four most popular and competitive games: League of Legends, DOTA 2, CS:GO, and Overwatch. Their followings are so high that colleges and universities have created facilities and curriculums supporting E-Sports. This is done in order to better promote E-Sports and the gaming community to be seen a a legitimate collegiate sport.
There are colleges that recruit players for their E-Sports teams before they gain acceptance into the school. While others allow students to tryout for the teams after they have gained acceptance into the university/college. Once accepted into the school, some offer curriculums for students to attend to help them better their E-Sports skills.
Below we have listed the top 5 universities with the best E-Sports programs:
Maryville University of Saint Louis:
In 2016, 2017, and 2019 Maryville’s E-Sports team won the League of Legends Championship.
2. Miami University (Ohio):
Miami University in Ohio started offering E-Sports Scholarships in 2016 and had their Overwatch team come in 1st place at the NACE Overwatch tournament.
3. University of California at Irvine:
UC Irvine is the first public university to have an E-Sports team. They Offer scholarships to both League of Legends and Overwatch athletes.
4. Robert Morris University (Illinois):
Robert Morris University has teams for all four of the popular games mentioned earlier. They began offering scholarships for their league of Legends team back in 2014 and have since grown.
5. Illinois Wesleyan University:
Relatively new to E-sports, Wesleyan is a private liberal arts university. They began their program in 2018 and focus mostly on League of Legends.
With the rising popularity of E-sports, allowing children access to E-Sports could end up being beneficial to their future. Not only could they receive scholarships to top universities, but it looks as though E-Sports will become an Olympic event in the near future. As with any sport, gaming behavior should be monitored by parents of young children and managed as the child grows older to avoid Gaming Addiction and/or Gaming Disorder which has been named an official medical condition by the World Health Organization. With all of this being said, E-Sports is consistently growing in popularity. Gaming has opened a door for those wishing to attend colleges/universities on scholarship.
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