As an avid gamer, I have been intrigued with professional esports for the better part of 4 years and it would always grind my gears when people said it didn’t take any skill or effort like a sport. However in reality it takes just as much skill or effort, if not more to compete in esports. As esports becomes more predominant in our culture and around the world, I believe it deserves the recognition and respect that any other sport would receive. Did you know that some colleges have made esports teams and given out scholarships to students for them? In 2014, Robert Morris University in Chicago became the first U.S. college to make video gaming a varsity sport, even offering scholarship prizes(choices.scholastic.com). I will be explaining …show more content…
They even feature games with ESPN-style analysis with commentators and giant touchscreen game-review boards. To start off I will be going into the background and history of esports.
Competitive gaming, or esports has existed almost as long as video games themselves. Even the earliest arcade games led to some fierce competition. Early on, a lot of that competition took the form of friends challenging each other to best their high scores, but it didn’t take long for organized tournaments to begin popping up. The first video game tournament was held by Atari in 1980 for the game space invaders, even though it was just the first one it attracted 10,000 participants. This tournament sowed the seeds the seeds that would
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Esports requires enormous amounts skill and strategy. The serious eSports athletes train for months on end, displaying strong mental fortitude, insane reaction time, and utmost dedication as they compete. Esports teams spend a huge amount of time working on strategy. Esports players may sit in front of a computer screen for 14 hours a day and you may think they are unhealthy, well on the contrary, most of them work out too stay healthy because a healthy body leads to a healthy mind which is the most important tool in esports. Esports athletes have incredible reaction times and esports players can make more than 300 actions per minute, which takes multitasking to a whole new level. Their technique must be impeccable otherwise they will get crushed the strategy based game known as LOL. All the game is strategy and macro play. Every esports event held for LOL has around 10 teams competing twice a week. That is 20 games a week where one team plays another team. They sure as hell do have opponents. They have everything that falls under the category of every other sport. So why isn’t it recognized? People will argue against these points by stating that gamers don’t need to train as long as normal athletes do, and require much more practice to keep competing at a top level. They will also refute that it doesn’t nearly take as much skill as gamers or that it’s easy to be easy at video games. They may
Despite the strength of the reasons as to why student-athletes should not be paid, there are certain problems with the current NCAA system which can and should be cured. The gap between a full scholarship and the cost of attendance should be covered by the academic institution, especially when a student athlete does not qualify for a loan. Such a policy will go a long way in ensuring that student-athletes are not leaving school to become professional athletes because they cannot pay their bills. Academic institutions should be able to provide at least that much for their athletes. Ultimately, this is a form of payment, but it is not the type of payment that some individuals are advocating. The primary purpose of these institutions is to educate; it is the coach's job to teach, and not just in terms of the sport a student athlete plays. These schools should facilitate the educations of student-athletes through scholarship grants, but not through a system of salaries dependent on supply and demand, which ultimately detracts a student-athlete from picking a school, and detracts them from attending a school, for the right reasons.
Only about 2% percent of high school athletes get sports scholarships every year at NCAA colleges and universities. For those who do get one, the average scholarship is less than $11,000 (Eitzen, D. Stanley). Every year college athletes are publicized and exploited for their talents and skills. Universities and Colleges sell jerseys and put athletes names on billboards and jumbotrons, and even used their likeness to have video games dedicated to the athletes themselves. In 2011-2012, the NCAA made 871.6 million dollars in revenue (Eitzen, D. Stanley). And guess how much money the athletes, who actually make the money, get from this exposure, 0%. The exposure or publicity of the athletes is the main reason why college athletes should be paid. College athletes are publicized on TV, magazines, and
I believe that college sports should be considered a profession. Athletes deserve to be paid for their work. College athletics are a critical part of America’s culture and economy. At the present time, student-athletes are considered amateurs. College is a stepping-stone to the professional leagues. The NCAA is exploiting the student- athlete. Big-time schools are running a national entertainment business that controls the compensation rate of the players like a monopoly (Byers 1).
Being a college athlete is a privilege. “only about 7 percent go on to do it. Only 2 percent of these people play in division” (Anderson 4). So many people dream to be that lucky person to get a free Scholarship to college playing your favorite sport. The athletes should realize that their giving an opportunity to be in college playing their favorite sport.
From its controversial student-run beginnings to its carefully controlled and monitored big-business attraction, college sports have evolved into an increasingly popular and demanding phenomenon in the United States. Along with the publicity and reputation that is created for the institution, many have found that intercollegiate sports serve several functions for the participants and community as well. While these functions also help balance and maintain the social order of the institution, unequal opportunities and distribution of power is found among the participants and non-participants, and the athletes themselves. Furthermore, with the new popularity and demand for victorious, competitive teams, colleges have lost their goal between balancing academics and athletics and using sports as an aid to help improve the athletes’ educational experience and opportunity.
Sports have been viewed as hobbies or after school activities. Now people view sports as full on careers and dream jobs. Colleges have begun supporting this new view come true by giving full or partial scholarships to sport’s athletes. Already a big compensation , it is not the only benefit athletes receive. They now consider offering college athletes a certain pay for their representation and participation in selected college sports. For a high school athlete this appears as a dream come true. On the other hand , for an athlete who depends strictly on his grades to enter college , this would feel unfair. Athletes who represent colleges , should not be paid due to the grand compensation of a scholarship.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA) has a long standing, successful history defined by amateur student-athletes, who play simply for the love of the game. However, after profiting of young men and women for years without compensating a single athlete, it has come time for a change. The NCAA's greed and refusal to change their definition of an “amateur athlete” has lead to the denial of star student athletes from building their brand and raising their financial ceiling.
The birth of Esports can contribute most of its discovery to its original roots from the 19th century era (Bellis). To understand the next generation of athlete culture, Esports, it is necessary for individuals to understand the beginnings of the newly bred activity. During the 19th century era video games were often overlooked due to its funky nature, however, the introduction of new technology that allowed individuals to manipulate and control objects was appealing to some (Bellis). One of the very first video games to have been developed was a simple graphical computer application used to resemble virtual Tic-Tac-Toe (Bellis). Although the game was simple in nature and basic in control, ...
Many of the games we play today is of ancient origin and even then provided mass entertainment of fans. In the beginning, ancient sports like the Olympic Games started out as rituals to honor gods or a leader and later developed into public events with festivals that surrounded the games (Jewell, Moti, & Coates, 2012). Today festivals are still seen during the Olympics Games, pre-game and post-game activities are held for NFL games, and fan’s host parties on game day surrounding favorite sporting events. Interesting, ancient sporting events began as a way to help individuals prepare for warfare. Individuals in ancient spots competed to help prepare themselves for military fighting, t...
Video games have come a long way. They have evolved from the simple game of Pong into a complex, multi-platform, multi-genre, multi-billion dollar industry.
Sports video games, video games that replicate a real life sport, have been around ever since the first video game console was released . Magnovox Odyssey, one of the first video game consoles, consisted of a table tennis game. Atari’s Pong, another sports video game, one of the very first video games was also a replica of table tennis (Suellentrop 7). As the video games have become more realistic and more popular amongst sports fans, they have created a vast impact on the video gaming industry. FIFA, a soccer video game by EA sports, captured 10% of the 351 million video game playing soccer fans around the world (Consalvo vii). Today, sports are a popular hobby for many people, but
Broadcasted competitive gaming has been around since the beginning of arcade games when people were competing for the highest score on shows like Starcade back in 1982(Bell). However, in the past couple of years the competitive gaming world has exploded in growth with more games, more tournaments, more players, and bigger cash prizes. During this most recent November there were eight major tournaments for a multitude of games including League of Legends, Call of Duty, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive and some less competitive games such as Battlefield 4, FIFA 14, and Street Fighter. With over a five million people watching these tournaments it is clearly visible that there is a passionate and large group of people that want this competitive gaming scene to expand. With all the activity going on in only a month and with smaller tournaments running all the time it is clear to see that competitive gaming or more formally called eSports has become in such a small time. However, the important question is whether or not eSports should be considered an actual sport like Football, Soccer, or Basketball. According to a ruling by the Olympic Committee, League of Legends already is, and will be taking a place in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro with other games being considered for the 2020 Olympics. Although there are those out that would like to dispute this ruling and say that eSports don’t meet the requirements of a traditional sport. A big argument has been conceived from the committee decision, but not all the arguments being used is valid and then there are those that.
Someone is sitting on a stage with people clapping and people cheering, but they didn’t sing or dance, they did magic while playing a video-game. This is competitive gaming. People can see and know that gaming is fun. They are playing a sport. Some disagree with this, but many other people believe it is. The players must go to the gym for fast reactions and stamina and must be very mentally focused, and just agree to stick with the trends as well. Video gaming should be a sport.
Videos games are no longer played solely for fun, but also turning into a new way to make money. There is a new, up and coming world that many people are not aware of, and that is the world of competitive gaming.
Sports, a very popular past time today, have been around since ancient times. Greek Olympic Games featured events from chariot races, javelin throws, to wrestling. In addition, a game similar to soccer was played in China by the second century BC. In England, a violent rugby type game was even played to settle feuds between villages. With the development of the industrial revolution and the creation of the first public schools, sports decreased in violence and were played more recreationally and constructively. Basketball was invented to help the youth in New England spend their energy in the winter months. Since the early 1900’s sports have been a key experience in the United States (“History of Sports”). I have played sports for many years, and the experience has helped me grow significantly as an individual.