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
Association such as the NFL and NBA aren't filled with a lot of people. Barely anybody will actually make it that far, and some people practice for countless hours. "According to a poll from last year only 7.6% of highschool athletes play for college level sports, and only 1.7% go pro from college sports. And when you think about it people who play for college had to practice for such a large amount of time and there not even pro (Manfred)!" So why should the 55.5% of students who play ...
Women started proving to people that they could play and soon they got their wish. Women started to play in college and eventually women started to play everywhere
Millions of Americans stare at ESPN or absorb themselves in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated just to catch the latest news on their favorite teams' recruits, recent games, and statistics. Often just viewed as a past time to most, it is easy to lose sight of why these athletes are on the field, court, etc. to begin with. Believe it or not, it's for their education. These young adults ranging anywhere from seventeen to twenty-three years of age are all members of the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association). As such these students must initially meet the requirements to get accepted into their chosen university, participate in their sport, and ultimately graduate from their selected institution.
Learning to set goals and achieve them as a student-athlete will help them become a well-rounded individual. Student-athletes should not be paid to play and the amateur status should remain as it has for generations. Student-athletes have not matured enough at this stage of life to be able to handle all of the additional responsibilities that would be forced upon them with the professional status. Put the almighty dollar aside and let student-athletes be student’s first, amateur athletes second, allowing them to grow and mature into tomorrow’s effective leaders.
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).
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.
The huge amount of money being made off college sports has led some to question whether student-athletes can be considered amateurs any longer, and whether they should, instead, be paid for their efforts, the argument can be made that the opportunity to both receive an education and get the exposure to win a major professional contract more than compensates NCAA athletes for their
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...
Growing up in America sport is a vital part of everyday life. From childhood to adulthood some aspect of sport pertains to virtually everyone. As a child one is looking to find a hobby so they play sports. As a parent fathers look forward to coaching their child’s little league team. And as tens and young adults sports are an opportunity to become a “somebody” and do something amazing. The general perception in high school and college is that athletes have it all. If you’re good at sports then you don’t have to worry about schoolwork or popularity and essentially you have but not a care in the world; you are invincible. Although it is great to see some succeed and become professional athletes many others do not have the same fate. The fate of these athletes, which happens to be the majority, is what drives my opinion on college sport.
Not only can sports teach you great life characteristics, it can also get you into a good college. Student athletes in high school dream of getting scholarships for the sport th...
Many still seem to believe a “free” education is more than enough, when in reality, not many players are actually given a free education. While every student has the potential to earn financial aid and academic scholarship money, athletes are also capable of receiving athletic money. A majority of athletes today are either playing without an athletic scholarship or a partial scholarship, in addition to other grants and academic subsidies. To non-athletes, this may seem unfair, but look at the big picture. These athletes are spending much of their time in the gym, on the practice field, and even in the trainer’s room dealing with injuries on a daily basis. It is extremely difficult to manage school, athletics, and life itself at once let alone finding the time to earn money working at the same time. When trying to juggle a packed schedule, it is easy to forget important things or at the very least ones effectiveness is hindered thus weaken the ability to be successful. There is also a great deal of stress and anxiety that comes with the game. In fact, there is a field of psychology specifically designed for athletes and their mental privation. The mental ailments and lack of free time definitely prohibit athletes from being as successful as they can academically. Conversely, non-athletes have much more time available allowing them to study and work at a younger age. Although athletic scholarships certainly assist these athletes in attending schools with inflated tuition fees, it is by no means enough for many collegiate athletes.
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.
Bell, Chris. "Video Games: The Sport of the Future?" The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 26 June 2013. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
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.
Just like the National Football League (NFL) or National Basketball Association (NBA), there is a league for video games as well, called Major League of Gaming (MLG). Competitors play in tournaments all around the world to receive either prize money or the chance to be sponsored by several companies. One very famous player in the First Player Shooter games (FPS) Optic Nadeshot, who is sponsored by Redbull, was interviewed regarding his sponsor. He said that he plays video games for about eight to ten hours every single day. He also makes videos on YouTube and has live streams that people watch of him gaming. In some of his videos, there are even ads, which is another source of re...