Currahee Chris
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
- Messages
- 4,776
So I have been grinding it out with my son who is a High School senior and getting him to his college baseball tryout camps. One of the most peculiar things I have encountered since taking this on is the explosion of NCAA "ESPORTS" teams!!! This is just hilarious!!!
For those of you who don't know- ESPORTS- are online interactive video games where teams or individuals compete against one another. The last two baseball camps he has attended, their schools each have ESPORTS teams- it's hilarious because you click on the website and you see the players name and they are rostered under the game they play- so say it's "John Smith- Senior- Halo" they have pictures posted up and everything else.
So the school he went to yesterday apparently spanked U Miss, Texas A&M, Penn State, Maryland and a slew of other traditional "D1" schools- this school is a traditional "D3".
I GOOGLED "NCAA ESPORTS" and it looks like there are 200 plus schools across the country that are doing this. Scholarships are in the works and NIL rules are on the table. Imagine being the kid that wins the national Halo championship and Microsoft wants to go and sponsor him or her........which leads to another issue- the teams are designed where gender isn't an issue. So these "sports" bypass all the "Trans-athlete" issues that are a hotbed of controversy right now. It's like my son said too "Oh yeah dad, these schools probably don't have to travel anywhere either except for maybe select national tournaments. You just plug in with your team in a conference room at the school and rock and roll".
I'm sitting here thinking my poor kid (along with 60 or so other boys) were in the hot sun for 8 hours yesterday trying to make a spot on the roster. Not saying ESPORTS wouldn't be a challenge- Im sure it is- but at least you are sitting in an air conditioned facility and seated instead of running back and forth to center field, pop sliding into a dusty second base and generally sweating to death in the heat and humidity.....suddenly all of this seems to make a LOT of sense for these kids. No cutting weight for wrestling weigh ins, no possible life changing CTE issues with football- just a climate controlled video game bonanza.
Hilariously my son did try out for the ESPORTS team at his high school when he was an incoming freshman. He didnt make the cut and he said that was a blessing in disguise. So I mean it has that going for it but still.
Mark my words- especially with the NIL rules on the table- if ESPN or some other sports network picks this up (I think I may have seen some of these tournaments already on ESPN and just didnt take notice). then this is REALLY going to blow up!!! You've got massive corporations like Microsoft (Ubi), Sony, Nintendo, EA, all of those companies just waiting in the wings to market their products through these student athletes and national competitions.
For those of you who don't know- ESPORTS- are online interactive video games where teams or individuals compete against one another. The last two baseball camps he has attended, their schools each have ESPORTS teams- it's hilarious because you click on the website and you see the players name and they are rostered under the game they play- so say it's "John Smith- Senior- Halo" they have pictures posted up and everything else.
So the school he went to yesterday apparently spanked U Miss, Texas A&M, Penn State, Maryland and a slew of other traditional "D1" schools- this school is a traditional "D3".
I GOOGLED "NCAA ESPORTS" and it looks like there are 200 plus schools across the country that are doing this. Scholarships are in the works and NIL rules are on the table. Imagine being the kid that wins the national Halo championship and Microsoft wants to go and sponsor him or her........which leads to another issue- the teams are designed where gender isn't an issue. So these "sports" bypass all the "Trans-athlete" issues that are a hotbed of controversy right now. It's like my son said too "Oh yeah dad, these schools probably don't have to travel anywhere either except for maybe select national tournaments. You just plug in with your team in a conference room at the school and rock and roll".
I'm sitting here thinking my poor kid (along with 60 or so other boys) were in the hot sun for 8 hours yesterday trying to make a spot on the roster. Not saying ESPORTS wouldn't be a challenge- Im sure it is- but at least you are sitting in an air conditioned facility and seated instead of running back and forth to center field, pop sliding into a dusty second base and generally sweating to death in the heat and humidity.....suddenly all of this seems to make a LOT of sense for these kids. No cutting weight for wrestling weigh ins, no possible life changing CTE issues with football- just a climate controlled video game bonanza.
Hilariously my son did try out for the ESPORTS team at his high school when he was an incoming freshman. He didnt make the cut and he said that was a blessing in disguise. So I mean it has that going for it but still.
Mark my words- especially with the NIL rules on the table- if ESPN or some other sports network picks this up (I think I may have seen some of these tournaments already on ESPN and just didnt take notice). then this is REALLY going to blow up!!! You've got massive corporations like Microsoft (Ubi), Sony, Nintendo, EA, all of those companies just waiting in the wings to market their products through these student athletes and national competitions.
