<p>Ah yes, because getting the crap knocked out of you and multiple concussions in “real” sports like football is so safe. 8-| </p>
<p>@saintfan - I am with you. Please do not show my 13 year old this thread!</p>
<p>@romanigypsyeyes did I ever say real sports was safe?</p>
<p>Not all sports are so prone to dangerous injuries… track, cross country, rowing, swimming are some good examples.</p>
<p>Any sort of physical exertion is better than just staring at the laptop all day.</p>
<p>@Jarjarbinks23 - Do you actually have experience in those sports?</p>
<p>Track and cross country athletes are seriously prone to injuries. Ruptured Achilles tendons, torn ACLs, serious hamstring damage, shin splints, broken bones, and other forms of injuries are relatively common in those sports. Rowing is prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of people, with ergometers costing around $1000 (for a Concept 2 rower) and the actual boats themselves costing more than most cars. It’s also very restrictive based on location as well. Swimming can be an issue if a school doesn’t have a swim team, and not everyone has access to a pool year round.</p>
<p>Real physical activity involves the risk of injury. Strains, tears, hernias (a friend of mine who’s a rower recently got a major hernia and was told that he would likely never row again), fractures, dislocations, etc. happen in sports. There is no way to avoid them, and in weightlifting we accept this as a fact. The only thing you can do is maximize your potential to avoid serious injury, and when an injury inevitably occurs, hope for the best and do whatever you can to assist recovery.</p>
<p>On the topic of eSports, many of you seem to be grossly misinformed. In South Korea, where StarCraft: Brood War was most popular and played competitively in Olympic stadiums, the players had strictly regimented diet and exercise schedules. They would play soccer together, stretch their wrists, exercise, and eat as healthy as possible. Actual, it is rarer to find an obese gamer on a pro-gaming team in South Korea than an obese baseball or football player on an American team. </p>
<p>They also are not “destroying” their bodies. Sorry to break this to you, but ALL of the top athletes are taking PEDs which are far more detrimental to their long term health than playing video games with moderate exercise each day. Hell, what do you think the average American does for a living? I’ll tell you this: The difference between playing computer games for 8 hours a day and sitting at a desk reading emails and working on spreadsheets is minimal at best, and the pro-gamer might at least burn extra calories with intense thinking and fast clicking. Even Roy Hibbert (a professional basketball player) thinks eSports is the next big thing.</p>
<p>People can take all hobbies and activities too far. There are people getting beaten up over which sports team they like and fights are started every day over stupid things about sports. Athletes are getting hit with routine concussions and thrown back in the game. Athletes constantly get surgery and just “repair” their body for as long as possible until they can no longer play the game. Some of you may think video games are just stupid games for kids, but how about you look at these athletes that children idolize? They aren’t such great role models in any regard. Many of them end up broke after playing, some end up as criminals, and most are not what we would consider “well educated.” Personalities such as Sean “Day[9]” Plott from StarCraft II are recognized as leading entrepreneurs and seen as industry leaders. Sean was actually recognized by Forbes “Thirty Under Thirty” list, and has degrees from Harvey Mudd and USC. People like him do what they love, and are creating positive change in the world. How come people look at eSports with such a negative bias, yet athletes that are often times terrible role models receive praise for doing a “real” activity that leads to the deaths of many adolescents and mental illness in many of the players because of their sustained brain injury (I’m looking at you football).</p>
<p>@micmatt513 I’ve done varsity XC and track all 4 years, so yes I do (but none of the others).</p>
<p>In regards to injury in these two specific sports, very few of us got major injuries or any sort of injury at all. There would be a minor muscle pull here and there, but with the right warmup and stretching methods, injury risk was pretty minimal (at least for us).</p>
<p>And yes, I’d say im strongly biased against eSports… your account of South Korean Starcraft players is most likely correct, but it’s hard to swipe away the stereotypical image of the fat player doing nothing but gaming. As esports grows, I think that image will slowly fade away.</p>
<p>@jarjarbinks23 Your argument for “sports” is invalid. Take, for example, ultimate frisbee. I am heavily involved in ultimate frisbee. If you are/were, you would know how extenuating and intense it is. Yet, most people don’t call it a sport, just because they aren’t familiar with it. We are as active if not more than people who play soccer. Yet… Merriam-Webster defines sport as any physical activity or: “a contest or game in which people do certain physical activities according to a specific set of rules and compete against each other”. Is ultimate frisbee, then, not a sport?</p>
<p>I never said playing video games was a sport. It’s an Esport. Hence, the “e”. Online. Instead of stressing you out physically, it works you mentally. You develop fast reaction skills, decision making ability, and judgement. It’s not just about blindly “staring at a laptop screen”. Ever since I started playing, I developed a better view of academics and problem solving. </p>
<p>I say again, don’t just blindly throw out assumptions and defaulty antagonize anyone who plays video games. </p>
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<p>Yes, its a sport, and always has been according to me.</p>
<p>That’s true-most do play it casually, but it still is quite addicting nevertheless. Still, I think that like any other type of serious mental or physical based competition, awards and these tournaments could work pretty well.</p>
<p>Also, speaking of the reset factor, I think gaming in terms of camaraderie is generally in between the level of team sports and individual sports, mainly because one can choose to stick to playing with a small group of acquaintances/friends, and I do think that it can build that team-aspect. However, I do think, jimmyboy23, that it is somewhat less than teamsports until you get into a competitive/professional team (where it can then lead to one instead spending all their time with their team, the extreme opposite of the spectrum). Finally, being an online game, communities can be quite toxic due to the reduced culpability-toxicity is quite common.</p>
<p>If playing video games is now a sport (not!), then so is video poker in casinos. lol</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids
Going by definition you are correct.
Sport - “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”
But these esports do come close meeting every aspect except for physical exertion.</p>
<p>Another problem to consider with these scholarships is how much money these gamers could bring in to the university. Even most football teams don’t produce profit year in and year out. I think the only way these sholarships could ever become common is if they are offered by private sources like video game companies or by the gaming community.</p>
<p>The fact that something may or may not bring in money to a univ doesn’t make it a sport. And the awarding of talent scholarships is not what makes something a sport. </p>
<p>As opposed to those with 100,000 posts on CC. Where is the confession of addiction?</p>
<p>As a former manager of an eSports team and a few high-profile YouTube gaming channels, I think I can offer a bit of perspective here.</p>
<p>If anyone has any questions, about eSports management, understanding exactly what eSports teams are or how this is applicable to a college campus, etc. tag me and I’ll respond. That’d be better than making a blanket statement. It’s a lot easier to answer pointed questions when reflecting on 4-5 years of broad experience in an industry!</p>
<p>I did this all throughout high school. The amount of business experience I gained as a high schooler was invaluable. Although as I started out as a competitive gamer, I learned more about advertising, contracts, marketing, organization, management, and interpersonal relations than I think I would in my school’s business program. Additionally, all interviewers love hearing about this experience. It’s truly made me a better worker, and most students who are able to do all of this (it is a 50-60 hour a week job) are those who are able to naturally keep up with their studies. Instead of quadruple majoring, they can devote more hours to building a certain business mentality. </p>
<p>However, while the eSports industry provides dozens of benefits to students involved in management, the benefits for the actual competitors are either financial or psychological, so I don’t see this as a place where colleges should step in. The competitors earn their money and build a team mentality. In my opinion, colleges can’t really facilitate this and would place too many restrictions on the growing industry, holding back their teams in comparison to privately run teams. On the other hand, it may get more players in the industry. </p>
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</p>
<p>Yes, yes, yes we do. My teammates and employees were the best people I’ve ever interacted with and are my brothers. I haven’t talked to some of them in months, but I can always rely on these friends to help if I ever needed anything. The reset factor isn’t too big. If you mess up once, you’re fine. If you mess up twice, you’re still fine but we’ll question your competence. If you mess up too many times, management will kick you off the team and replace you with a more skilled, competent player. If a series of games don’t go your way, you can be blacklisted from the community, kicked off your team, not wanted on other teams, etc. You always have to be on your game. It’s a bit cutthroat.</p>
<p>Seriously, if anyone has any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. For reference, the game my team competed with was Call of Duty [removed specific physical tournaments]. I was originally part of the “MLG” community’s sister community, known as “trickshotting”. I led teams/managed channels with subscribers; overall, I led over subscribers and was somewhat well-known in the eSports leadership community. My channels around total video views. We were partnered through organizations such as Machinima, TGN, Vexon, Yeousch, BBTV, Fullscreen, etc. We were affiliated with controller designers and sponsors. [removed some extra details]</p>
<p>I can’t speak much to LoL eSports, as it’s an entirely different community. However, there are many similarities and in deciding whether or not to attend Carnegie Mellon University (I declined their acceptance for financial reasons) I talked to many members of the LoL community at the school and got a feel for the LoL community on college campuses through those interactions. (I’m specifically mentioning this school as it’s famous for League of Legends; some of the best players went here). </p>
<p>Edit: Removed the numbers; I don’t want to be outted if someone has a copy of my resume. Subscribership was in the hundreds of thousands, views were in the tens of millions.</p>
<p>The weird but true things about “e-sports” is that there are teams that actually do practice together like a conventional sport. There are fans and spectators and, as strange as it seems, play by play announcers with color commentators. People tune in to watch their favorite teams play. It freaked me out the first time I heard the commentators . . . it sounds like they’re calling a basketball game. </p>
<p>In my heart of hearts I still think a sport needs physical activity but this seems to meet the other criteria.</p>
<p>The college I heard about, Robert Morris I think, runs their League of Legends “varsity team” as close to the NCAA teams as possible. They have limits on practice time, they practice together, they get help with academics if they need it.</p>
<p>I have no problem calling an online sport an “e-Sport”. </p>
<p>An interesting point - my nephew is a rather good pianist, he has already played at Lincoln Center, and has taken a year off after his sophomore year in college to compose and do music direction for musicals. Would there be any future in music groups becoming like sports, where they put together teams that compete?</p>
<p>A huge potential for kids who are not athletically inclined.</p>
<p>Sports and entertainment cross - that is why so many are willing to put in time, energy, and money.</p>
<p>Some people do ‘work’ in the e-Sport industry.</p>
<p>At some point, everyone needs to evaluate what they are doing and if it is healthy, gets them to their goals, etc.</p>
<p>Sometimes certain activities get ‘latched on’ and an individual will avoid doing other things because they receive such great enjoyment with a particular activity that goes beyond ‘normal’ boundaries - and they lose sight of their goals.</p>
<p>My son’s friend is now very into this. M</p>
<ul>
<li>He suffered a horrible concussion and can no longer risk playing “regular” sports. </li>
</ul>
<p>@mom2collegekids these aren’t sports, they’re “esports”</p>