Nearly 200 universities in the United States are offering e-sports tuition scholarships to student gamers, recognising its recruitment potential as e-sports become the fastest-growing area of sport in the world.
The estimated worth of these scholarships is $15 million; the average e-sports scholarship is worth $4,800 per student. Some scholarships are game-specific – only Fortnite or Call of Duty players may be eligible, for example.
E-sports arenas: building for the future?
To encourage gamer students to apply, as well as increase participation in varsity e-sports teams, some universities are even building their own e-sports arenas. These include University of California Irvine, Ohio State University, the University of Vermont, and the University of Washington among others.
Full Sail University in Florida has built the largest campus e-sports arena – a 11,200 square foot room with capacity for 500 spectators – in a bid to appeal to gamer students and host its varsity e-sports team, Armada.
