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• Nearly 20% of academic programs are out at the University of Akron but competitive gaming is in as the school plans to build the world’s largest esports facility, which college officials see as a step forward, into the future.
• “The University of Akron and its students will benefit significantly from the creation of an esports program,” former Akron President Matthew J. Wilson stated in a 2017 university news release announcing the addition of esports. “Embracing esports allows the University to continue attracting top students while providing an innovative pathway for students to flourish academically, socially and professionally.”

Josh Moody Contributor

The plan has been met with pushback — particularly from the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors, which has suggested Akron is prioritizing video games over academics.

“It is as though you are saying: Well, we are bored with education so let’s play games instead,” wrote John T. McNay, president of the Ohio AAUP chapter in a letter to the university.

“So playing games is the same as educating Ohio’s students for life and careers,” a copy of the letter obtained by the Akron Beacon Journal said. “This shows a serious lack of judgment and indicates that you are violating the trust that has been placed in your hands for protecting and enhancing the University of Akron.”

Despite the controversy, Akron is pushing ahead — and it’s not alone. With esports surging, so are plans to capitalize on its popularity.

Southern New Hampshire University Students will be able to try out for the school’s new esports program this fall.

Ashland University announced a scholarship for Fortnite players earlier this year, joining dozens of other programs offering financial aid to competitive gamers, though ESPN reported it was the first for that specific game.

Hardly outliers in higher education these three universities are among the 80-plus schools in the U.S. and Canada that offer competitive gaming programs according to the National Association of Collegiate Esports. Founded in 2016 the nascent nonprofit counts more than 1,500 student competitors in its ranks with associated colleges doling out $9 million in gaming scholarships and related financial aid.

NACE member schools compete against one another on popular PC titles such as League of Legends, Overwatch, and Fortnite.

Scrawling through the NACE website turns up numerous schools with newly minted esports programs: Marietta College, Lackawanna College, Ohio Northern University, Northern Virginia Community College, and so on.

Colleges are investing in esports programs, hoping to tap into a potential market that has mushroomed in recent years.

Alongside traditional sports, ESPN now has a section of its website devoted to compeitive gaming. In 2015, ESPN dedicated an issue of its magazine to esports, noting that the League of Legends Championship in 2013 sold out the Staples Center and brought in another 27 million viewers almost as many as the combined audience for NBA finals (15.5 million) and the MLB World Series (13.8 million).

Only the NFL Super Bowl, with 112 million viewers attracted more eyeballs than the League of Legends Championship ESPN reported. By 2018, the livestreamed League of Legends Championship drew more than 360 million viewers, according to CNN.

Not content to just write about esports, ESPN also plans to broadcast live competitions on ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2 and Disney XD.

The Chronicle of Education reported that as Akron hacks academic programs, the university will pour $750,000 into three esports facilities and spend another $400,000 into program operating costs and $70,000 for game licenses and other associated costs. According to the Akron website, more than 5,200 square feet will be dedicated to competitive gaming at the varsity, club, and recreational levels. Akron said it will stock the space “with more than 90 state-of-the-art gaming PCs and 30 next-generation consoles.”

The nerve center for competition will be in a 1,222-square foot gaming area on the first floor of the Zips football stadium complete with a viewing area for spectators and broadcast studio.

While Akron may have more total space dedicated to esports, the University of California, Irvine was the first public college to build a gaming arena, opening a 3,500-square-foot-facility in 2016.

Other schools also have opened expansive arenas, such as the 4,000-square-foot facility at Tiffin University and a 3,000-square-foot space at Hawaii Pacific University.

Not to be outdone by Akron, Boise State University is expanding its current esports space to 6,400 square feet.

Robert Morris University Illinois was the first school to launch a varsity esports team back in 2014 and develop a gaming arena.

Earlier this year, Robert Morris program founder Kurt Melcher told the Chicago Tribune that it is just a matter of time before schools are building out esports arenas to attract coveted recruits, competing in the same type of arms race that colleges have long engaged in by developing bigger and better facilities for traditional spotlight programs such as football and basketball.

“I think we’ll see over time a facilities war similar to top-end athletic departments,” Melcher said. “It’s important to high-level players. What kind of access will they have to their (gaming) system? What is the system? Do they have to share it?”

In addition to top-notch facilities, some colleges are offering significant scholarship opportunities, such as $40,000 (over four years) at Schreiner University or $60,000 at Missouri Valley College, on the high end.

So far, it’s mostly small colleges getting in on the action. Comparatively, it’s far cheaper to dive into this emerging market than to develop more expensive traditional programs. The $750,000 Akron plans to spend to develop the largest college esports facility in the country is only a sliver of the cost to build football stadiums that run into hundreds of millions of dollars. Esports offers small schools a chance to level the playing field.

“There really was no perceived differences between larger and smaller schools,” Averett University President Tiffany M. Franks told the video game website Kotaku earlier this month. “We used machines that were comparable to other schools, and with everything based on network lag times (or ping rate), we saw no deficiencies on our end.”

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