HP has officially joined the North American Scholastic Esports Federation. https://clubs.nasef.org/club/299/portal
Esports (electronic sports) is the term used to describe the sport of competitive video gaming, which is recognized by the Eastern College Athletic Conference as a varsity sport. It is the fastest growing sport in the United States. Esports allows schools across the country to redefine their athletic culture, diversify opportunities for student participation, promote physical and mental health, and increase collegiate scholarship pathways.
Currently, more than 475 of the nation’s colleges support esports, and nearly 50 schools provide a total of more than $9 million in scholarships to gamers. Some colleges even offer full rides for esports games such Overwatch, CS:Go, League of Legends, and more. In New York State, Canisius, Siena, Keuka, Iona, and other universities offer esports as a competitive sport. All of this opens the pathway to college for students who may have never considered higher education.
For those unfamiliar with esports and its global influence, in 2018, the second most watched sporting event in the United States after the Super Bowl was the League of Legends finals.
Our scholar-gamers will be competing with other schools in North America. The benefits to parents, students and the school district community include, but are not limited to:
- Provide students who play video games a platform to compete and make friends. (Statistics show 72% of all teens actively play video games.)
- Create pathways to higher education in the video game and programming industries.
- Reach students that are otherwise not participating in extracurricular activities.
- Provide incentive to raise academic grades,
- Pursue BOE goal of maximum student participation.
- Promote teamwork.
- Increase skills such as cognitive thought and problem solving.
- Increase reflexes, hand-eye coordination.
- Increase social interaction.
- Instruction and practice of programming, reading, math skills.
- Increase student aptitude in citizenship, leadership, goal setting and digital literacy.
- Provide framework for inquiry and project based learning.
- Preparation for careers that require mastery of digital media and technology. According to a recent market report, esports is estimated to make nearly $1.5 billion by 2020, with an audience of over 600 million people. Forbes notes that esports is one of the fastest growing content categories in the world.
- Increased interest in STEM related fields.
- Provide opportunities for personal and team recognition.
