1.媒体来源:
http://fortune.com/
2.完整新闻标题:
At these two colleges, students can get scholarships for playing video games
3.完整新闻内文:
Robert Morris University and the University of Pikeville are two schools
expanding the concept of college sports to include video games—not only
creating eSports teams, but also offering scholarships to gamers and building
eSports facilities.
RMU, located outside of Chicago, was the first school in the U.S. to offer
eSports varsity and varsity reserve scholarships. UPike, located in Kentucky,
is the second, treating League of Legends video gamers like traditional
football,
basketball, and baseball athletes.
Kurt Melcher, associate athletic director at RMU, came up with the
scholarship proposal after playing Riot Games’League of Legends online
multiplayer game and seeing Riot Games set up its own collegiate league.
He received approval from the university president to not only hire a coach
and bring in student players, but also to build a $100,000 eSports facility for up to 36 players to
practice and compete in on campus.
“ESports is just like real sports with kids playing different positions and
working together as a team unit,” Melcher says. “We look at eSports and
traditional sports as a second classroom where students learn about winning
and losing. It’s engaging them outside of the classroom.”
RMU, a small private school with approximately 3,200 students,
offered 35 students partial varsity (70 percent off tuition) and varsity
reserve scholarships (35 percent off tuition).
The school currently has 17 varsity and 16 varsity reserve players.
Its League of Legends varsity team just came in second place in
Riot Games’ North American Collegiate Championship.
Each of the six team members from RMU was awarded a $15,000 scholarship from
Riot Games.
RMU is already expanding its program.
The school had a team compete in Blizzard Entertainment’s recent
“Heroes of the Dorm” college tournament, which was broadcast on ESPN2
and received strong ratings.
This fall it will add 15-20 scholarships for players of Valve’s Dota 2 and
10-15 scholarships for players of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft,
games which are both part of the Collegiate StarLeague (CSL).
Melcher plans to create a Mid Season Invitational eSports competition with
local universities like DePaul, Northwestern, and Illinois State competing,
with game streaming company Twitch livestreaming the event.
When Riot Games posted a story that RMU was acceptingLeague of Legends
scholarships, Melcher said he was inundated with 2,000 emails from gamers
interested in the program.
He was also flooded with inquiries by 35 other schools, each interested in
how RMU had set up its program. One of those schools was UPike.
Bruce Parsons, director of new media at UPike, said he was approached by
current students about starting a League of Legends club.
After hearing interest from high school students in the area,
he began researching the possibilities.
With the example already set by RMU, the university decided to build a
varsity program on campus to offer new opportunities for students and to bring in
talented, technologically-savvy students from around the country to the
Central Appalachian region.
The UPike eSports program will officially launch this fall with 20 scholarships in its first year. Those students will have their own eSports
arena to practice and compete in, which will be built during summer break.
“We have had tremendous interest in our eSports program from around the world,”
Parsons says. “Many students want to compete at the collegiate level in
eSports and League of Legends.
In addition to potential eSport athletes, we’re also hearing from current
students and potential recruits interested in shoutcasting and streaming
eSports.
We’re going to build an entire collegiate gaming culture on our campus and
spread it throughout our Central Appalachian region and to anyone else
interested in participating.”
With a global eSports audience of 134 million and growing, according to
Superdata Research, RMU and UPike are likely to be joined soon by other schools
offering eSports scholarships.
===============================不负责翻译=============
简单来说，
RMU 与 UP将电子竞技视为正式运动，不仅提供奖学金给电竞选手，
甚至还盖了专属电竞训练所，供选手使用。
4.完整新闻连结 (或短网址):
http://fortune.com/2015/05/28/college-esports-scholarships/?utm_content=buffer
84f66&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
缩网址如下
https://for.tn/1d1vwZ2
5.备注:
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