eSports is Coming to Notre Dame!

We are excited to announce eSports has made its way to Notre Dame! With 60+ students showing up to the first meeting, the team promises to be very successful.

Under the supervision of team moderator, Mr. Jaime Gibilisco, the Notre Dame eSports Team will be participating in two potential leagues in the winter and spring: the High School eSports National League and the Garden State eSports League. In both leagues, the potential to win scholarship money is available if teams place high enough and apply to colleges that have eSports programs. The games that we will be competing in are: Rocket League, League of Legends, Super Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, Overwatch 2, Valorant, Apex Legends, Brawlhalla, among others.

eSports is a form of competition using video games. Most commonly, eSports takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players and teams. Although organized online and offline competitions have long been a part of video game culture, these were largely between amateurs until the late 2000s, when participation by professional gamers and spectatorship in these events through live streaming saw a large surge in popularity. By the 2010s, eSports was a significant factor in the video game industry, with many game developers actively designing toward a professional eSports subculture.

Participants and teams compete in seasons or tournaments similar to athletic sports, and compete for prize pools from hundreds of thousands to several million dollars. At the high school level, players generally compete for cash prizes of thousands of dollars and scholarships. Hundreds of schools now offer scholarships for eSports athletes; Harrisburg University made the news in 2018 as the first school to offer a full ride for their entire team consisting of 16 students.