ESports is an emerging market participated in by professional gamers, coaches, sponsors, event organizers, and celebrities. An eSport is an emerging sporting genre entering public spheres occupied by traditional sports like football and soccer. Today’s gamers are already enjoying a wider selection of eSports activities and many participants dream of a day when eSports will be sanctioned by schools and accepted as family activities.

The High School Starleague (HSL) is described as “the first eSports organization in the world dedicated to high school gamers” and they are continuing to prove that dedication by announcing $20,000 worth of scholarships for the 2013-2014 Spring Season partially sponsored by big names like NewEgg, MSI, and Twitch.

HSL over the past several months has gathered students over games like League of Legends, StarCraft II and DOTA 2, to build friendships and rivalries with opposing school teams from across North America.

As stated in the name, it is a tournament for the young students attending high school, where the goal is to increase the levels of the different games, creating rivals between each other in right spirit and to recognize eSport as a sport among schools.

“With these scholarships, the HSL will usher in a new era of eSports where excelling in cyber-athletics will be as respected as excelling in traditional sports,” said Tomber Su, CEO of High School Starleague.

Wang, in an interview to Red Bull, said that it is extremely interesting as they’re dishing out scholarships to the winners, not prize money, which will allow for continued education outside of high school. That money can’t be used for anything else. It must go towards tuition for that students’ education at a four-year college.

“Through tournaments and scholarships, we plan to prepare our aspiring and talented gamers for the professional gaming scene, while simultaneously ensuring success in their education and character development outside of the game,” added Jesse Wang, COO.

He also encouraged safe gaming and gave some general advice the HSL also offers. “We also encourage safe gaming, which is playing in a responsible manner. We don’t want the image of addictive gaming that has been perpetrated by our society over the last decade. I think eSports is doing a really good job of showing that gaming isn’t something that people just do that’s addictive, it’s something they compete in and put a lot of dedication and time in.”

Moving Towards an eSports Future

HSL, in the process of organizing eSports activities in various schools, is testing the acceptance of schools towards computer gaming as a school sanctioned activity.

In terms of the player base, League of Legends got an overwhelming 220 teams in response, followed by StarCraft 2 and Dota 2.

Members of HSL are working tirelessly to develop a blueprint for eSports in schools to try to get eSports integrated further into school mainstream. As part of the initiative, the FIRST Robotics program aimed at getting children into science and technology. “These students talk to sponsors because the parts for robotics aren’t cheap, so they do pitches to get more funding. Schools are happy about it because they don’t have to pay for it that much and there are college students that come in. I’ve been working with college students to get them to come and help out HSL clubs,” said Wang.

League of Legends and World of Tanks played a role in pioneering the Western esports industry. Recently, Wargaming.net announced a $10 million investment into eSports as a company in 2014 to focus on Wargaming’s eSports endeavors. Last year, the gaming company claimed its largest esports event yet, where the League of Legends Season 3 World Championship broadcast was watched by 32 million people.

Game Developers Conference (GDC) event also played an important role in the emergence and evolution of eSports. At this year’s GDC, developers and participants showcased multi-screen and multi-platform applications, new opportunities with mobile technology and eSport as the as new financing options for independent game developers.

The scholarship program is referred to as being one of the biggest steps in eSports. It is now possible for the children who go to school to justify their game, they have the opportunity to win a scholarship. There are even great opportunity to win a high school scholarship than if you try your luck in the same tournament just with college.