Forget what your mom once told you about playing too many video games, because doing just that in today's world could snag you a scholarship and a college education.
Robert Morris University Illinois is the first university in North America to officially offer scholarships to qualified League of Legends players, just as the university would do for athletes of more traditional sports, such as football and basketball. Eligible players will be able to have up to 50 percent of their tuition and 50 percent of their room and board paid for by the university to play a video game. Not too shabby.
The goal is to create a League of Legends team that will compete in the Collegiate Star League with more than 100 other universities, including schools like Arizona State and Harvard, and just like any other college sport, RMU's League of Legends team will come complete with coaching and staff support. RMU will be looking to recruit players from the League of Legends High School Star League, which currently has teams competing from more than 750 schools across 46 states and eight Canadian provinces.
RMU's team will be competing to win the North America Collegiate Championship and $100,000 in scholarship money.
The move comes thanks to RMU Associate Athletic Director Kurt Melcher who, according to League of Legends developer Riot Games, is a gamer at heart and an experienced player of competitive game titles on PC. After he learned about the League of Legends Collegiate Star League and the skills required to compete, Melcher started to create the program.
"Robert Morris University has always been at the forefront of providing opportunities for a diverse student population with different interests and skills," Melcher says in an official university statement. "League of Legends is a competitive, challenging game which requires significant amount of teamwork to be successful."
The popularity of eSports is only continuing to grow. League of Legends, due to its free-to-play monetization strategy, is the most played video game in the world, with more than 27 million players logging on daily to battle it out in 5v5 matches with a roster of colorful heroes. Thousands watch professional gamers play the title weekly in various tournaments and circuits, with last year's League of Legends World Championship awarding the winning team $1 million. The game's chief competitor, the also free-to-play and Valve-backed Dota 2, is also wildly popular. The prize pool for Dota 2's annual tournament, "The International," reached$10 million thanks to the support of players purchasing in-game items and contributing to the prize pool.
