[CQ-Contest] "College recruiting gamers as athletes "

[David Gilbert]

Radiosport and video games are, however, competition ... with both of 
them having elements that are every bit as intense as any athletic 
competition.  I fully agree that gamers and contesters are not 
"athletes" per se, but I think I could argue pretty solidly that 
colleges and universities originally created athletic scholarships to 
promote competition far more than they did pure athletics (fitness, 
etc).  If we were to think of these scholarships in that context it 
wouldn't sound like nonsense at all.

Not that I expect that radiosport would ever qualify for scholarship 
consideration.  There isn't enough general interest in what we do for 
anybody to pay to watch us do it while video games, on the other hand, 
are reaching that point.  In places like Korea it is already a very 
large spectator sport with top tier players earning upwards of a hundred 
thousand dollars per year and having rock star status. I'm pretty sure 
that nobody bid on the streaming video rights for WRTC this year ....

73,
Dave   AB7E


On 6/28/2014 12:46 PM, Mike Baker wrote:
> Because it's nonsense. Being a gamer or contester doesn't make you an
> athlete.
>
> Mike, NT6X
>
>
>
> If they can do it for this, why not radiosporting, which is, as everyone
> should-but-does-not know, was the worlds First Massive Multiplayer
> Online Game.
>
> 73,
> Steve
> NN4X
>
>
> By John Keilman, Tribune reporter
>
> 11:01 p.m. CDT, June 23, 2014
>
> The idea came to Kurt Melcher, not surprisingly, when he was online
> searching for video games.
>
> Melcher is associate athletic director at Robert Morris University, a
> Chicago-based university that gives out 1,400 athletic and activity
> scholarships across its 10 Illinois campuses as a way of recruiting and
> retaining students. But it occurred to him that one sport, rapidly
> growing in popularity, was missing from the scholarship roster.
>
> After a little research and the blessing of the university's
> administration, that's about to change. Robert Morris this fall
> evidently will be the first school in the country to offer athletic
> scholarships to students who play the video game "League of Legends."
> It's a move that seems to stretch the definition of sports and athletes.
>
> "It's a team sport," Melcher said. "There's strategy involved. You have
> to know your role in the game. Obviously it's not cardiovascular in any
> way, but it's mental. There are elements that go into it that are just
> like any other sport."
>
> [ SNIP ]
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