Video Transcript
[Narrator]: Since 2016, universities have been adding varsity esports: competitive intercollegiate video game teams. With nearly a hundred colleges and universities now with official programs, eSports is fast becoming the new college sport. But with any dramatic change comes criticism: how could institutions of higher learning promote something so trivial? But when you look a little closer, eSports demonstrates, just like other sports, that it’s a pathway to something more.
[Dr. Brett Shelton, Boise State eSports Co-Director]: There’s several misconceptions when it comes to eSports and it’s place on the University campus. The first and foremost is that people would say it’s not a valuable learning activity, it’s not a place where people can learn new job-related skills or maybe get a good industry feel for what’s happening outside the university environment, and that’s just simply not the case. All evidence points otherwise. There are so many new jobs – the industry is absolutely booming. People are looking for students that are graduating with experience in things like streaming and technologies, marketing, the whole business side, sponsorships; there’s the whole graphics and coding component that’s involved in in eSports and other video-game-type of activities that are really important in just terms of jobs and industry.
[Narrator]: And on their way to those careers, students who attend schools with varsity eSports programs can compete for their university. But in order to be eligible, students have to meet the same high academic standards as other student athletes.
[Female student]: You have to maintain a certain GPA. You shouldn’t be playing constantly, you should have like a certain time frame and like practice for like two hours a day or four hours a day. You shouldn’t be just like overwhelming yourself.
[Male student]: Care about your grades, first and foremost as Dr. Haskell said, he cares about our grades first because we came to college to get an education, to get a degree, and then we also get to do what we love and play eSports.
[Narrator]: athletics and other university-sanctioned activities bind students together with purpose, a chance to be part of something bigger than yourself. where we learn to work hard, play a role, lose with dignity, win with honor, all for our school. This is why we play.