According to eSports supervisor Jacob Utities, there is a fast growing number of university-funded eSports programs in the United States.

“Despite the fact that the sport is relatively new, there are already over 20 colleges offering college scholarships for eSports in the United States,” Utities said.

Utities said the Midwest, especially Minnesota, has many nationally renowned options for collegiate eSports.

“All of the teams in the Big-10 Conference have programs, as well as schools such as the University of Minnesota-Duluth and even Normandale Community College,” Utities said.

Senior Ethan Sadler, a member of the Overwatch team at Park, said he is interested in playing at the college level as an alternative to professional gaming.

“I am not quite good enough yet to play professionally, so I think college programs could be a good fit for me,” Sadler said. “I would hopefully get better and be able to play professionally after graduating college.”

According to Utities, there are recruiters at many eSports tournaments that will contact team organizers about one of their players joining a certain collegiate program.

“Recruiters from our league play and tournaments we enter into will typically contact me first about a student they are interested in having on their team,” Utities said. “Formal tournament settings are the best way for students to get noticed by recruiters.”

Beyond earning scholarships for playing eSports in college, Utities said that participants can also win scholarships through their performance in high school competitions.

“Depending on how they finish in the league playoffs, teams will earn a certain number of points to be distributed among members,” Utities said. “These points can then be used to buy eSports merchandise or converted into college scholarship dollars.”

According to senior Graham Campbell, the prospect of earning scholarships toward college motivates him to develop his video game skills.

“Knowing that the more matches I win can correspond with earning scholarships definitely makes me practice harder,” Campbell said.

Utities said he believes that college eSports will soon be as popular as other major collegiate sports.

“I think it will take around five or ten years, but with the current growth rate I undoubtedly see eSports becoming as big as, if not bigger than, football and basketball at the collegiate level,” Utities said.

Campbell said he believes that eSports participants at Park, especially on the Overwatch team, could play in college if they choose.

“Because we won nationals, I am sure that if anyone from Overwatch at Park asked around we could find quite a few collegiate programs that would be interested in having us,” Campbell said.