One of educations and educator’s greatest challenges is staying up with the times and our ever-changing students. One of the best learning moments I saw was at a STEM conference in Texas. It was an overlay of two graphs. One graph showed the rate at which technology changed based on inventions and development, and the second graph showed all the way our students take in information. The graphs looked like the x-squared parabola.
The takeaway is that our students are now taking in information and changing as rapidly as the technology in our world. Yes, some things stay the same, but the impacts of this come faster and faster.
And then when you look around at education, our classrooms are essentially the same as the 1800’s, change seems to come slower, we have more bureaucracy and simply moving a large ship takes time and doesn’t happen fast; yet our world is changing faster than ever.
An example of this change is the rapid growth of esports clubs in the United States. These clubs are good examples of how schools, especially secondary schools, need to adapt and grow their clubs and organizations to the needs and interests of students. For those of you who are not totally sure, esports are multiplayer video games played at a competitive level.
We learn that the esports industry has grown from a global market value of $957 million in 2019 to approximately $1.6 billion in five years, an increase of over 70 percent. This is important because our schools are supposed to reflect the interests and needs of a community. For example, if your school is in a medically rich area, your health science career and technical strand should have high participation. Likewise, if you are in a growing tech region, odds are your esports club should be strong.
The Network of Academic and Scholastic Esports Federation now counts about 3,500 high school esports clubs in the United States, and that does not include those that function independently.
Benefits of Esports as a School Sport
One of the primary benefits of esports as a school sport is that it reaches a whole new population of students without a specific club or organization. We have had the traditional athletics and fine arts options for hundreds of educational years. Somewhat recently, the growth of academic competitions has helped to spread the competitive wealth into competitions like number sense, editorial writing, film making, etc.
In Texas these are examples of our UIL Academics. Many of the students who are inclined to play esports found themselves competing in UIL Academics, now they have another place to compete and play the games they are playing at home with each other.
Challenges and Considerations
Those who have started esports clubs repeatedly note that getting the right equipment and space for the team is the biggest challenge. The equipment has to run fast on the school’s network, which also must be able to handle the speed of the games. It cannot lag on the network, or else players’ chances of success will be impacted.
Then you have to have a space large enough for the screen and the teams so spread out and have the room they need. This could be done in a traditional classroom, but that could mean losing a classroom in the process.
A larger converted conference room or smaller space than a whole classroom could serve a location for the club. One obstacle that still exists is the cost of starting these teams and clubs. Smaller districts are lagging behind the larger districts simply due to the lack of financial resources needed to start these teams and clubs.
The Future of Esports in Schools
With esports clubs being added yearly (adding one at my school next year, with a specific room for esports in the new high school that will open in 2026) and a growing interest from students in game design classes, the building blocks for continued growth of esports are in place.
For example, two of the larger school districts in the state of Texas have growing esports teams. Dallas Independent School District has 170 esports programs, while Northside Independent School District (San Antonio, TX) has esports at 11 high schools and 21 middle schools.
Another place where this is evident is how colleges are responding to this.
There are many examples of colleges who are offering scholarships in esports. University of Texas at Dallas has an esports League of Legends, and students can earn scholarships from $1,000 to $6,000 per student. The University of California at Irvine has the same scholarship structure. And the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology offers 22 full-ride scholarships annually.
But it doesn’t have to stop in college. Influence Marketing Hub indicates that professional esports gamers can make between $12,000 and $187,200 annually and that well-sponsored teams can make more than this. Thus, the playing of esports has a place to continue for students from middle school, high school, college, and beyond.
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