Esports might just be the new college scholarship. According to Michael Brooks, the executive director of the National Association of Collegiate eSports, the number of post-secondary institutions offering esports scholarships has grown almost 5X in the last year.
In other words, all the time on Fortnite just might not be a waste.
Esports is growing an incredible rate — 41.3% year-over-year, according to a Newzoo report. That growth is transforming the space into a $1.5 billion market by 2020, says Newzoo’s Peter Warman, when about 300 million people will be watching eSports.
That’s up from $362 million in 2017.
By contrast, the almost 100-year-old NFL made $14 billion last year, the MLB is around $10 billion, the NBA is just over $7 billion, and the NHL is at about $4 billion.
With growth rates for esports so high, it’s likely that professional gaming will eventually overtake some or all of the major professional sports leagues. And that’s probably why colleges and universities are getting into the act.
I asked Brooks about the recent growth, how schools are awarding eSports scholarships, and what life as an varsity esports athlete is like.
Koetsier: How many schools now have scholarships for esports?
Brooks: In NACE we have 76 member institutions. All but two offer scholarships. Outside of NACE we know of 6 other varsity institutions and I believe they all give scholarships.
Koetsier: What kind of growth rate are you seeing?
Brooks: Around this time last year we had 24-26 member institutions. The year before that we started with our founding six institutions in July 2016. The preceding two years before July 2016 it took two years to go from one to seven. By this August, our projections expect 120 varsity esports programs in the U.S. and Canada.
Koetsier: How do schools award esports scholarships?
Brooks: Schools award scholarships typically just like any other scholarship administered on campus. Scholarships are typically awarded based off of three characteristics; academics, merit, and athletic.
Our member institutions award esports scholarships (which we would relate to athletic scholarships) based off a number of different traits including; player skill, academics, ability to communicate, available positions open on the team, etc.
Koetsier: If you get an athletic scholarship as a gamer, what kind of practice/game/tournament schedule do you have?
Brooks: Just like any sport, it depends on the game. Most esport game titles work off of a semester model of competition. Within that semester a team will typically have one official match a week.
In terms of practice there is no national limit yet, and that may not come for some time. However we typically see practices daily running two to three hours. Most official competition (outside of scrimmages) occur in a swiss format and progress to a tournament bracket over time.
Koetsier: Where do you see this going … getting as big as traditional sports scholarships? Bigger?
Brooks: Within the last year or so we’ve started to see more and more institutions offering full ride scholarships at the varsity level. Previously scholarships have been partial.
This was a fairly rapid development in my eyes and I expect this trend to continue with most teams consisting of students on full-rides and students on partial scholarships in the years to come. There is still a tremendous amount to be done to define varsity esports and set the foundation for stable growth. Though from my experience with traditional athletics in higher education, I have not seen any other traditional sports move as rapidly as esports has.
Certainly within five years I hope to see varsity esports be a common sight on college campuses across North America. Within ten years I hope that esports is an expectation at all schools with intercollegiate programs on campus.
Koetsier: Thanks for your time!
John Koetsier is a journalist, analyst, author, and speaker. Follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.