Ready Player One - esports and college opportunities
Flint, Mich. (WJRT) - (11/11/2021) - Did you know the most popular celebrity playing video games is making as much as $1 million per month?
It’s one of the fastest-growing high school and college sports, esports or electronic sports, is competitive video gaming at a professional level.
Every year, its audience is growing by the tens of millions. It’s not just the audience that’s growing; it’s opportunities too.
You’ve all heard of kids getting a full ride to college for playing football, hoops, or even golf, but it turns out your kid playing video games all day could turn into a free college degree.
“The culture here at Kettering, there’s a lot of people who play video games on their PC and whatnot, so I know that I knew that they would have a very competitive team,” Josiah Okoro said.
Okoro is a senior at Kettering University, and with the clock ticking, he’s realizing that all the hours he spent mastering skills in the virtual world is finally going to pay off.
“It’s obviously communication and teamwork at my co-op, learning the communication skills from here and then applying them to the real world in like three months from now is honestly amazing and learning to work with a team and whatnot,” Okoro said.
Okoro joined the esports team late in 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic, and when the pandemic hit with people spending hours on hours at home, interest and participation in esports surged.
Market research from the company Newzoo shows the total esports audience worldwide soared to 495 million in 2020, helping the industry pass $1 billion in revenue for the first time.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Black, White, male, female, what your social or sexual identity is, you can play esports just as good as anybody beside you. That really helps bring community together as well,” Jason Gooding said.
Gooding is the Esports Coordinator for U of M Flint. He helped launch the program in fall of 2020, starting with 18 students and then growing it to 37 just one year later, transforming an IT office into a state-of-the-art space fully-furnished with custom gaming chairs, headsets, keyboards, mice, and six 55 inch displays to help enroll students.
“My teammate Luke actually recruited me or I say recruited. He told me we have an esports program. I transferred from Mott to U of M Flint to play here,” Noah Wright said.
During practices, just like in traditional sports, Wright and his teammates review their own Rocket League games on replay, fixing their mistakes, and analyzing their decision-making. Gamers like Wright agree that practicing those skills on a team translate well in the real world.
“There’s a lot of thinking and repetition and building muscle memory, but also taking a step back and realizing that the way that you’re doing things isn’t correct the vast majority of the time, and there’s always a better way to approach something,” Wright said.
U of M Flint does not offer varsity athletics, but much like other universities across the country, they’re open to awarding scholarships for those who play. U of M Flint is working to build one and expects one soon.
At Kettering University, new and incoming students can earn a scholarship of up to $4,000 per year.
“Offering that money to kids and offering that money to people to be a part of this gives them not only an incentive to be here, but it shows that we want to invest in their future,” Daniel Nowaczyk said. Nowaczyk is the esports Head Coach at Kettering University.
It’s something The Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals is picking up on to, sponsoring these schools around the state, including four in Mid-Michigan.
Bentley High School in Burton plans on picking back up on esports for the new year, taking note on how playing games can impact students in the real world at a critical point in their development.
“I think my self-awareness. I believe my self-awareness is more than others based off of the games because it can give you paths, situations, different endings, conversations have domino effects,” Andrew Gullett said.
At Bentley, their Superintendent and Athletic Director were able to secure $12,000 in funding to purchase the needed equipment to build and e-sports team in their school.
“What we’re doing is we’re trying to create a bridge to future possibilities for our students,” Superintendent Kristy Spann said.
Opportunities like scholarships and job opportunities in the tech field.
“You look at nanotechnology. Look at the implications for medicine. Look at the implications for transportation. The tech field is where we’re heading in the future,” Spann said.
Colleges and Universities ABC12 spoke to said this could be something much greater for the Flint area with Kettering University, U of M Flint, and Mott Community College all offering esports programs.
There are other scholarship opportunities available in Mid-Michigan like at Northwood University and Saginaw Valley State University as well.
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