Esports

Miscellaneous discussions. Things that don't have anything to do with Western, Leatherneck Athletics, college sports in general, etc.
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sealhall74
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Daugher of a facebook friend heading off to college this fall. She was accepted at TCU, SMU, UWM but chose tiny Florida Southern. I don't know what the deciding factors were but I do know Florida Southern is putting some serious dollars into their varsity Esports program. Moral of the story is this: As much as we want things to be like they were when us oldtimers were growing up, it ain't gonna happen. It's a new world out there now. We must be brave. Adapt and survive or start digging your hole.

http://www.flsouthern.edu/undergraduate ... ports.aspx
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ST_Lawson
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Yeah, E-Sports have been a thing in eastern Asia for a while, but has just recently (the last few years) started to really take off in the US. Attendance at live events as well as streaming online is growing like crazy (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-espo ... kly-2017-3). Last year's World Championships (for League of Legends, one of the more popular esports games) had over 2 million people watching online...not including Chinese viewers (it was hosted in China and there were over 104 million chinese viewers at it's peak)...total was ~106.2 million viewers.
Compare that to the record for the Super Bowl: 114.4 million in 2015.
The events of the world championships were held in large sports arenas with the championship round held in "The Birdcage"...the main arena for the Beijing Olympics.

It's also relatively easy for colleges to get into offering as a club sport, since they really only need essentially a large conference room with a handful of higher-end gaming PCs to get started. https://blog.starters.co/17-colleges-wi ... 01b5c4f3ce

Obviously you can do more with it if you want though...


The Big 10 already has their own league going, with League of Legends creator Riot Games providing $35,000 per school to be distributed among the team's rosters: http://btn.com/2018/01/10/big-ten-network-riot-games- ... ough-2019/
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rocki
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sealhall74 wrote: Wed May 02, 2018 7:42 am Daugher of a facebook friend heading off to college this fall. She was accepted at TCU, SMU, UWM but chose tiny Florida Southern. I don't know what the deciding factors were but I do know Florida Southern is putting some serious dollars into their varsity Esports program. Moral of the story is this: As much as we want things to be like they were when us oldtimers were growing up, it ain't gonna happen. It's a new world out there now. We must be brave. Adapt and survive or start digging your hole.

http://www.flsouthern.edu/undergraduate ... ports.aspx
No thanks. I can find plenty else to do than play games on a computer. Don't know about the rest of y'all, but I find this pretty frightening, actually.
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sealhall74
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It is hard to pinpoint exactly what the attraction is and why it is so popular. My two cents is this. First, it is a fairly simple extension of the cell phone and social media technology that most of us use each and every day. Also, for me, big time sports (professional and major colleges) have become so expensive and commercialized that I find myself not wanting to support the high salaries of the players and coaches anymore. Case in point, the Mets' Yoenis Cespedes slid in to 2nd base last night and busted his necklace of diamonds, spilling them all around the base. If I show up, I am in effect supporting his idiotic behavior. So, if I dont want to show up for big time school and pro events, where do I go for sports entertainment? One of my favorite sports events to attend in person is actually the WPBA (Womens Professional Billiards Association) 9 ball tournaments that you used to see a lot on ESPN. They have sort of fallen off the radar lately because of diminishing sponsorship, but it is hard to beat drinking a beer while sitting 8 or 10 feet away from the best female pool players in the world, even chatting with them a little bit if the opportunity permits. 98% of these women were struggling to make ends meet and had real jobs. Playing pool was a passion for them and that is when the best competition comes to light. I suspect that is also the case for most of the Esports participants.
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rocki
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OK, Seal, I get the point about pro sports. I find them absurd myself as far as the money paid to these people to play games. However, and I may be misunderstanding the whole esports thing, things you've mentioned still involve interacting with other living beings; not sitting behind a terminal playing against anonymous people.

It's the whole social aspect (or lack thereof) that gives me the creeps.
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ST_Lawson
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rocki wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 2:31 pm OK, Seal, I get the point about pro sports. I find them absurd myself as far as the money paid to these people to play games. However, and I may be misunderstanding the whole esports thing, things you've mentioned still involve interacting with other living beings; not sitting behind a terminal playing against anonymous people.

It's the whole social aspect (or lack thereof) that gives me the creeps.
E-sports teams are often directly interacting with their teammates. Sure, you can play remotely with/against people you don't know, but if you're on a competitive team, you're usually playing together in person, constantly talking and strategizing, and you've known the people for years.

I've played League of Legends before (I suck at it), and while I didn't know the people we were playing against, the people on my team were all people I went to college with here at Western. It varies by game, but for League of Legends, you usually have teams of 5 players facing off against each other.

The first part of this video shows how the teams are usually set up when they're competing. The headsets and microphones allow them to communicate directly with each other with much less likelihood of misunderstanding each other if there's a cheering crowd or other noises.
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sealhall74
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Technology is here to stay. Embrace it and use it to set you apart from your competition. If I was StudentPres, I would invest in some segways and bikes. When kids come for a visit, give them the option of touring the campus in a stylish and fun way instead of just meandering down the sidewalks on foot. Plant the seed in their minds that you are going to go that extra yard for them. I have done segway tours thru the crowded French Quarter of New Orleans and on Sanibel Island off the Florida gulf coast. You can be up and going after about 5 or 10 minutes of instruction and practice. Sure as hell beats walking to see a lot in a short period time. We would not be the first to do it, but maybe the first public college in the Land of Lincoln.

Embrace the pace of the race.
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