Athletic scholarship for "esports team" - apparently that's a thing now.

Parent Cafe
1

[quote] And in the fall, the 2017 Marion L. Steele graduate will be heading to Lourdes University in Sylvania this fall on an athletic scholarship to play on the school's eSports team.

Robert Morris University in Chicago became the first school to offer eSports scholarships. And they reached out to Jordan. But when Lourdes University made plans to start a team, Jordan liked the idea of being a little closer to home.

Lourdes is currently building an arena for its eSports team, which makes perfect sense when you consider the enormous following stateside.

In Ohio, Tiffin University, Miami University, and Lourdes all have varsity eSports teams. More are on the way.

[/quote]

http://www.wkyc.com/tech/video-games-earn-local-student-a-college-scholarship/455781703

The scholarship the kid is getting: http://www.lourdes.edu/latest_lourdes_news/lourdes-university-expands-collegiate-footprint-with-esports/

And one local paper’s article about the new program: http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2017/01/31/Video-gaming-to-be-offered-as-varsity-sport-at-Lourdes-University.html

2

One of the colleges my daughter applied to offers a $1000 esports scholarship. Why not? Makes as much sense as athletic scholarships (for non-revenue sports) to me.

3

One of the ‘why not’ reasons is because if it were an NCAA scholarship, it might preclude the student from other need based (or even merit) scholarships, and a D3 can’t offer athletic scholarships but can offer merit/talent. It’s really a talent scholarship, awarded for having a talent like music or art. Lourdes is an NAIA school, so the rules about athletic scholarships are different.

4

I’ve no qualms with the concept of “esports” and “esports scholarships” … other than the word “sports” being attached to it.

Music isn’t “audiosports”. Debate and Forensics aren’t “ThoughtSports”. Drama isn’t “TheatreSports”

Just come up with a better name than “esports” and don’t try to comingle this with athletic scholarships (which is a whole 'nother “bag of worms”.

:wink:

5

My daughter is going to Tiffin to play lacrosse – she was a tad miffed that they have no locker room but there is a huge esports complex LOL