[News] Riot Games and the Big Ten Network Launching League of Legends Collegiate League

https://esports.yahoo.com/riot-game...e-of-legends-collegiate-league-140351214.html

So, basically, the TV network of one of the major college athletics conferences (The Big Ten being that conference) in the United States partnered up with Riot Games to offer a collegiate league for League of Legends. 12 of the conferences 14 member schools will be fielding teams for this league. Their plans are to televise the finals matches.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think this will help raise public perception about eSports? Will eSports scholarships be a thing in the future? Is this overall a good thing, or a bad thing?

I think that people who scoff at esports will still scoff at esports, but it's cool to see how far competitive gaming has come. It's a natural kind of progression given how much gaming has grown, not just as a hobby but even a career for some, in the past decade or so.

Gonna go a little off topic here, but it's also really interesting to me how vastly different professional opinions on gaming are these days. For example, the DSM-5 has a specific mention of "internet gaming disorder" in their Conditions for Further Study (so it's still not officially recognized as a disorder, but they're looking into it) - the diagnostic criteria contains things like "a preoccupation or obsession with video games", spending many hours a day gaming, etc. But on the other hand, gamers are also treated like athletes sometimes, like in this case. In the US you can even get a P1 Visa for being an esports athlete, and like any other pro athlete, the expectation is that you would train several hours every day to keep your skills sharp.

So yeah, bit of a funny contrast as the world still struggles to make sense of gaming and what to categorize it as. Fine line between pro sports and addiction. :P

Juno has pretty much said what i wanted to say about the whole E-sports thing but I'm just happy to know that there's another scene other than LCS and Challenger Series that people can care about mainly when it comes to watching some new talent that may one day grow into big players in the future. I actually love watching the LoL Collegiate scene as there's so many well deserving players in said scene who can grow into future stars for North America.

Also going a bit off topic, to those who follow competitive League in NA, if you look at the scene right now, well ever since LCS has been taken more serious following its inception from a few years ago, NA itself is in deep need of home grown talent. One thing i want to talk about is the Challenger scene, basically the secondary league for teams who want to make it into LCS. The novelty of the Challenger scene back in the day was watching out for some hot new talent and teams making it into the big leagues. But ever since the competitive scene in NA has leveled up into what it is, its hard for many homegrown talent to be taken notice with many orgs preferring to take players with previous LCS experience or get imports from other regions.

The Collegiate scene is something that people could take notice of when it comes into some new homegrown talent.

I'd have more to say about this so stay tuned.

I feel eSports is something that could end up being massive worldwide. It's a shame you don't see it broadcast in all countries. Hopefully this WILL raise more awareness and show the TV stations how popular it can become :D