Wake up, head to class, play video games for seven hours, go to bed. Repeat.
If you think that sounds like every 20-something’s dream, you’re mostly right. Derek Micheau is a 22-year-old senior at Robert Morris University Illinois and a “League of Legends” player on the nation’s first varsity eSports team. And while some might not see him as a traditional athlete, his rigorous practice schedule, tuition-based scholarship and championships suggest otherwise.
“During the season, we practice from 2 to 9 p.m. every day on weekdays. It’s strenuous, but it helps keep you on track,” Micheau said. “It’s definitely been a good thing for me.”
He is part of a history-making athletics program at RMU centered around competitive video games. The school is the first to offer scholarships to students whose talents are best suited to a TV or computer screen.
“We have two levels of scholarships. The varsity level scholarship covers 70 percent of the student’s tuition—roughly $25,000,” said Kurt Melcher, associate athletic director at Robert Morris. “The varsity reserve level scholarship covers 35 percent of tuition or roughly $10,000.”
When Micheau transferred to Robert Morris from the community college he was attending in Washington, he was offered a varsity-level scholarship.
“I was actually recruited to be part of the program,” he said. “I played for a team that the head coach [Ferris Ganzman] previously worked with, so he knew me through that.”
The program hosts a number of eSports teams that compete in different leagues, which are designated by particular games, including “League of Legends,” “Dota 2,” “Hearthstone,” “Counter-Strike” and “Heroes of the Storm.” RMU’s “Legends” teams compete against other college and university recreation teams in the student-led network of “Legends” clubs across the U.S., known as ULoL (University League of Legends).
“The top schools in ULoL went to Boston for the Campus Series Playoff,” Micheau said. “We went and had the chance to play for $150,000 in scholarships. We got second place and won $15,000 per person—an added bonus to my 75 percent covered tuition.”
Micheau once aspired to become a pro gamer, but he’s shifted gears.
“I’m using my level of skill to put me through school,” he said. “Next year is my final year of school and ‘League of Legends.’ I’m going to hang it up and get a real job.”
But some exceptionally talented players have made competitive video game playing their real job. So what if you do become a pro gamer? The eSports market is already massive and is steadily gaining popularity. The worldwide audience for competitive gaming surpassed 134 million in 2015, according to a Superdata report.
The Chicago area is home to one of the best eSports teams in the world in OpTic Gaming. Established in 2006, the franchise is home to 13 pros, with two to three reserves, who are broken into three teams: OpTic Call of Duty, OpTic Halo and OpTic Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
OpTic Gaming has won at least nine U.S. and world championship titles in the past two years, most recently at the CoD Major League Gaming Anaheim Open earlier this month.
With OpTic boasting more than 19 million fans across various social platforms, the parallels between its members and pro athletes are numerous. The MLG Anaheim Open, which the team won, offered a $100,000 prize. The prize pools for some leagues are as high as $3 million.
Many OpTic players live together under one roof in the northwest suburbs and drive luxury vehicles, and they often sport swag from their sponsors.
Though it might sound like a dream job, the competitive gaming circuit is difficult to break into and requires long hours as well as physical and mental fortitude.
Hector Rodriguez, 36, is the founder and CEO of OpTic Gaming, so he understands the daily grind of a pro gamer.
“For a professional player, for example, like Seth [Abner], he wakes up, he plays for a couple of hours to get a good game to upload to his YouTube channel. Once that’s done, recorded and edited, he uploads it to YouTube and starts his live stream,” Rodriguez said.
“On his live stream he pretty much practices and competes from 3 o’clock until probably about 1 a.m. or 2 a.m.”
Along with countless hours of practice, fan interactions, YouTube content creation and live-streaming, OpTic players compete in tournaments locally, nationally and internationally on a monthly basis.
Outside the U.S., they’ve competed in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Poland.
“Competitive video game playing is more popular outside the U.S., and I think in other countries it’s more advanced,” Rodriguez said. “They have a little more passion and are not shy in showing it. The United States is slowly getting up there, but everywhere else it’s just blown up so much that it’s an accepted sport.”
Many pro gamers are celebrities to their fans who spend hours watching them play on Twitch—a live-streaming platform and community for gamers—and YouTube.
At a recent book signing where fans got to meet OpTic players, 15-year-old Aaron Levine described it as the best day of his life.
“Yeah, I mean I watch them every day on my phone on YouTube,” he said. “And just to meet them in person will be totally different than when I see them on my phone on YouTube every day.”
Fans pack arenas for U.S. and world eSports championships, so playing in front of sold-out audiences comes with the territory. Sound familiar?
ESPN jumped on the bandwagon two years ago, and since then the network has aired more than 300 hours of live eSports programming.
“Our interest isn’t going away and will continue to grow as eSports continues to grow,” said John Lasker, ESPN vice president of programming and acquisitions. “We recognize the fact that there is an audience there. You’ll continue to see us making progressive and incremental moves and our interest intensify in the future.”
ESPN isn’t the only network seeing eSports’ potential. Last month, TBS began airing ELeague, a 10-week “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” tournament where 24 teams from around the world compete for $1.4 million total in prizes.
Also similar to other sports, pro gamers won’t spend the majority of their lives competing at the highest level to earn a living. Twenty-six-year-old Mike Chaves is now a retired OpTic player, and while the pressure to compete is no longer on his shoulders, he continues to coach the OpTic Gaming Halo roster in his spare time.
“This retirement is a reset,” Chaves said. “I’ve been playing professionally since 2006, and it definitely gets a little draining playing eight hours a day. I need to do other things to keep my mind fresh.”
He has words of wisdom for anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps.
“My advice to the amateurs is to put in the hours to play; you’re only going to get better,” Chaves said. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I took steps to go pro, but I also went to college as well. Because if it doesn’t work out professionally, you’ll regret not having gotten an education.”
@RianneCoale | rcoale@redeyechicago.com
