It's true! Indiana college offers scholarships to play video games
Hit the showers football. Head to the bench basketball. There's a new jock in town.
FORT WAYNE — Attention, gamers: Indiana Tech is looking for video game superstars who aren't necessarily the Mountain Dew-drinking, Cheetos-eating, stay up with the lights off until 3 a.m. stereotype. But they're welcome, too.
The university has made video gaming a varsity sport starting this fall and is actively recruiting players of two games: League of Legends and Hearthstone.
Attention parents: Indiana Tech is offering scholarships to gamers with the right stuff.
The new collegiate sport, taking hold at a handful of other universities around the country, can be traced to a modest beginning at Indiana Tech in 2015.
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What started as a club team in a hot basement with a tangle of extension cords has now been elevated to a gaming arena with custom-made gaming stations, state-of-the-art gaming chairs and a coach's office.
"We're looking to build an eSports family here," said Kyle Klinker, Indiana Tech recreational community coordinator and eSports director. "We will have varsity, junior varsity and club. The club will remain for kids who want to be engaged but just want to have fun."
Indiana Tech is one of the six founding institutions of the National Association of Collegiate eSports (NACE), essentially the NCAA of video gaming. The others are Columbia College (Mo.), Maryville University (Mo.), Midland University (Neb.), Robert Morris University (Ill.) and University of Pikeville (Ky.).
The driving forces behind the new eSports programs are audience and money. The 2016 League of Legends championship drew 43 million unique visitors. The prize pool topped $6.7 million.
This fall, Indiana Tech will offer 12 scholarships to students to play video games: $5,000 for varsity gamers and $2,500 for junior varsity gamers. That money will go toward an expected 2017-18 tuition of $25,940, but there's the lure of that prize money, too.
Getting paid to game
In the beginning, there were 17 kids willing to pay $50 apiece for a spot in Indiana Tech's eSports club and a Warriors team jersey a mere two years ago.
Indiana Tech President Arthur Snyder saw potential. He saw eSports as an avenue to engage and retain students, as well as attract new students to Indiana Tech. Not only did Snyder invest in that potential, he went all-in with the scholarships and gaming arena.
Gamers noticed.
"We're pretty competitive when we play and we always go in like, 'We're going to beat them,'" said Kelly Hays, a computer science major from Glenarden, Md. "Now, they say, 'Here's some scholarship money,' and we're like, 'We're going to beat them more.'"
Students still get the majority of their scholarship money from academic scholarships. Klinker said he could see a school offering full rides as collegiate eSports grow.
For sophomore Ethan Smith, a scholarship would give him some validation. The 20-year-old Akron, Ind., native plans to hone his League of Legends skills over the summer.
"My mom was like, 'Why do you spend all this time playing video games? It won't amount to anything,'" Smith said. "Hopefully, it ends up in a scholarship."
The rise of a Legend
The fast-paced growth of collegiate eSports doesn't come as a surprise to business marketing major J.T. Carman.
He's been telling anyone who would listen that eSports is about to get big.
"The best part about it is telling friends and family that I'm getting a scholarship to play video games and seeing the look on their face," said the 23-year-old Carman, of Leo.
Indiana Tech's club went from rags to riches in two years, but Fort Wayne isn't the only place where eSports is taking off. The Warriors compete in the Collegiate Starleague — Division I, II and III teams from across the country.
Who is watching this growing sport mature? That's where the NACE comes in.
The first Collegiate eSports Summit was July 28, 2016, in Kansas City, Mo. Indiana Tech gathered with five other colleges and universities touting varsity programs and the NACE was born.
Now, the NACE has 30 members and accounts for 90 percent of all varsity eSports programs in the the country.
"The NACE provides structure, standings, schedules and tournaments," Klinker said. "We're putting together rules and regulations for academics and transfers. Basically, all the little things the NCAA or NAIA does.
"We realize there needs to be structure, but we don't want to take away from what the students are getting. We see all the time where our students are winning money. Our association doesn't want to get too hands on and control the students too much."
Right now, any money won through a team would be strictly scholarship money. At Indiana Tech, that money would go toward books or tuition.
If books and tuition are all paid for, the current plan places the money to the side until gamers graduate. After graduation, players will receive their winnings in full.
"The NACE is just trying to put a little more structure into how gamers get the funds, unlike the professional scene where you get the money right there and can do whatever you want with it," Klinker said. "There is big money to be won in these games. We don't want to take away from their successes."
Coach wanted
A pair of interim coaches has helped monitor the gameplay for the Warriors over the past two years. But growth demands something more.
Indiana Tech has opened up a nationwide search to hire the school's first eSports head coach, which is a part-time gig — for now.
"We're brand new to all this," Klinker said. "We are going to post it on our website but get creative, too. We are reaching out via social media. We're hitting discussion boards and the League of Legends boards that are out there. We already have a lot of people interested just by word of mouth."
That coach will review years of gameplay by his or her own squad and start game days three hours early to prep the team for the best-of-three League of Legends battles.
"There is so much that goes into all this that people don't realize," Klinker said.
Indiana Tech will air all future competitive matches on YouTube and Twitch, a social video platform and community for gamers. According Twitch's website, close to 10 million gamers use it to watch and talk about video games daily.
"We're looking to engage not just players who want to watch, but parents, family and friends who may just want to watch an event they can't drive out to see," Klinker said. "Some league games may start pretty late or in prime time, as we are trying to drive attendance through streaming and online viewership."
As the evolution of eSports continues, console gaming such as PlayStation or XBox is on the horizon.
The NBA and its partner, Take-Two Interactive Software, which makes NBA 2K, announced that 17 NBA teams have agreed to acquire players and build an eSports team. The Indiana Pacers will own a team for the inaugural NBA 2K eLeague next year.
"We've been in talks with them and know it's coming. We are trying to partner with them and some of the NBA teams, but it hasn't gotten to that point yet," Klinker said. "We feel we can build a program at the collegiate level. This is a different kind of audience with console gaming for sports. It is a different type of gamer. The traditional athlete already has that connection to a sport where most other gamers don't."
Like other collegiate sports, players have an opportunity to go pro, and there is big money to be earned. According to eSports Earnings, the top 30 players in the world have each made more than $1 million. Saahil "UNiVeRsE" Arora of the United States is the top grossing player, accumulating nearly $2.8 million in 62 tournaments through the game Dota 2.
The fun and the possible funds mean there's plenty of interest, and Klinker is optimistic about Indiana Tech's role in gaming. "Hopefully, the program grows and keeps growing."
Chris Sims is a digital producer at IndyStar. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisFSims.
Why League of Legends and Hearthstone?
League of Legends is a five-versus-five strategic team game with the goal of destroying your opponents' base. Players face obstacles and complete tasks that make their characters more powerful, as well as acquire goods used to destroy the other team's base.
Hearthstone is an online collectible card video game for single players. While there is a bit of strategy, luck is also a factor. The goal is to beat the opponent by reducing his or her health to zero using minions and spells.
Indiana Tech chose League of Legends because of its worldwide interest. The game is widely considered the most popular online video game today, according to Klinker.
The decision to add Hearthstone offered a competitive option for gamers looking to compete as individuals.