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Organized Collegiate E-Sports Gain Momentum; Are Conferences, Scholarships Next?

Collegiate e-sports is "viewed as the next big thing now that several pro leagues are seeing such massive success, and there is a very good chance that within the next year, there will be an organized collegiate e-sports league," according to Susan Slusser of the S.F. CHRONICLE. College leagues could feature "traditional conferences, including the Pac-12, and, eventually, scholarship players." ESL Exec Chair Steven Roberts, whose company organizes e-sports competitions, said, "College sports is a very important place. ... E-sports is still in its growth state, but you’re going to see more and more of it at the collegiate level and we want to formalize it like any other sport. College sports is something special and these students spend just as much time practicing, much as time training." Slusser noted Stanford and Cal played each other Saturday in a League of Legends "Big Game show match" at Oracle Arena in front of a "crowd of a few thousand." Nearly 40,000 more were "watching online." The match was during the Intel Extreme Masters, one of the "top competitive gaming events in the nation" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 11/20). Roberts said that kids who "discover they don’t have the talent for basketball or football when they’re in junior high or high school can turn out to have an affinity for e-sports when they grow older and enter into universities." In San Jose, Gieson Cacho wrote collegiate e-sports is an "untapped pool of talent and viewership." Roberts: "The infrastructure is there." Cacho noted focusing on "campus Internet access, which is fast, and structured environment that can foster tight relationships," are two elements "needed for e-sports teams to grow" (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 11/20). 

TOP DOG: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Juro Osawa noted China-based technology firm Tencent Holdings is the "global videogame industry's biggest player." Last month, Tencent "made its latest foray into the global market" by completing with a group of Chinese investors an $8.6B deal to buy Finland-based Supercell Oy, which "makes some of the world’s most popular mobile games, such as 'Clash of Clans.'" Tencent also owns Riot Games, the maker of “League of Legends,” the world’s "top-grossing PC game" (WSJ.com, 11/20).

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