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NCAA Adopting Collegiate Esports Could Have Negative Effect For College Athletes
ATLANTA, Ga -- Kevin Le looks at the gigantic screen inside of Georgia State University’s new Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII) building. It’s a crisp, chilly Wednesday afternoon, and you can see faint puffs of cold breath leave him as he gives the building another once over before entering through the revolving doors.
“It’s something that you think would be cool but never thought would happen for you. Schools with gaming programs are popping up everywhere but you never guess one will come to your school,” he says when asked about Georgia State’s new esports program.
Georgia State joined the growing wave of colleges and universities sponsoring their own competitive esports programs. Several of these programs dot the country, many beginning to offer scholarships to players and coaches as well as paid opportunities for students interested in the field of competitive gaming.
According to ESPN Esports, since 2014 now over 50 known programs have been started across the country. Governing bodies have also been created, most notably the National Association of Collegiate Esports.
Regardless of whether the goal is for these programs are built for winning, the most exciting opportunity for these programs, according to Georgia State Esports Assistant Director Jason O’Toole, is to “provide students with an opportunity to learn and grow in a space where multiple job opportunities exist in a field where there hadn’t been (jobs) just a few years ago”.
Indeed, the Esports industry is a has reach the billion-dollar category, and according to Newzoo, the gaming market is expected to grow from $116.0B to a market estimated $143.5B in the year 2020. But how do collegiate esports athletes tap into that cash flow.
Many, like Georgia State League of Legends captain Andy Jespersen, do so through providing entertainment through the live streaming platform Twitch.tv.
“If you can dedicate yourself to growing your following on Twitch through consistent streaming, you can make a lot of money. There are streamers like LIRIK, shroud, and others who make six figures off that alone,” Andy says as he continues to stream his own gameplay while I interview him.
Other players have been known to take hiatuses from school to participate in local and global tournaments to win prize money, and there are also the yearly collegiate tournaments hosted by Riot Games, the American Video Game League, and the Collegiate Star League. These tournaments provide scholarships as prizes to those who place high enough.
Even the NCAA has noticed the growth of collegiate esports. According to The Score Esports via ESPN, the NCAA has begun formal meeting with Esports consultants to begin analyzing how Esports would fit with the NCAA.
However, there has been push back from the collegiate community. Due to the NCAA’s own rulebook, if collegiate esports were to be recognized by the NCAA, players would not be able to pursue these extracurricular opportunities to supplement their income.
When the subject was brought up to Jespersen, I received an eye-roll and a sigh of frustration before a verbal response. “Not only would we lose access to a lot of the prize money given out by those (listed) tournaments, we wouldn’t be allowed to stream for money, or do anything else to push our personal brand which is big in esports.”
Many experts in Esports predict that if the NCAA gets involved then it could be the end of the collegiate arena, but some recognize that it is inevitable as the scene continues to balloon in growth. One of those people is the Director of the Georgia State program, David Cheshier.
“The more the space grows there will definitely be a need for a large governing body with experience to take over. These smaller governing bodies won’t have the manpower to carry all of this once almost every school has a program of its own. It will be like the Wild West,” Cheshier says as I sit with him at a local Starbucks.
In a battle of idealism vs. reality, it is quite often that reality wins. In this case, it will remain to be seen in the coming years.
CNN Reflections
I ambled casually into CNN, prepared for my second “insider” tour of the place, and I knew there was nothing new it could show me. I was wrong. I was surprised by how quiet the headquarters of the largest news outlet in the world could be.
From the giant newsroom within the depths of the complex, to the small offices of the weekend workers: near silence. We were led by Digital News Editor Monte Plott, who still works because he found retirement “boring”. "The only thing we (journalists) have going for us is credibility," he says.
"If we lose that -- if get things wrong, doesn't matter why or how we got them wrong, just that we screwed up -- then we're out of business.” This quote sticks as we walk the halls, and it makes you realize how hard this journalism thing is, with no appreciation given to those who call it their profession.
