Rising sport finds a place at Northern Essex
Back in November of 2018 Northern Essex announced the addition of three new sports to their athletic department: Men’s soccer, Women’s basketball, and, most interesting among the three, an Esports team. The Esports will be a multiplayer video game team that compromises of online multiplayer games, according to the Northern Essex athletic page. It will have student-athletes from Northern Essex compete together to defeat other institutions teams in the online multiplayer games Esports has been a sports on the rise in the past couple years, as companies keep throwing and more money in the competition. It has become a billion dollar industry, in which people that once just played game with their friends can now become millionaires with their skills on the sticks, according to a report done by CNN.
The sport has evolved from mostly being centered on sports video games, such as the Madden football and NBA 2K series, to now being more focused on first person shooters and battle royale style games, such as Call of Duty, Fortnight, League of legends, Counter Strike among others. The sports can still be considered in its infancy and will likely just continue to expand at an exponentially increasing rate. Developers and publishers are continuously increasing their cash flow into the sport, through both sponsorships and hosting tournaments. The prestige of sponsoring a winning Esports team has been likened to sponsoring a winning Nascar team.
This helps ensure a healthy flow of money into the sport as big name companies jostle to give the best teams money. The team will be coached by RJ Warnock, a NECC alum who played baseball while here as well as being a high ranking Fortnite player. Warnock starred in baseball here, and will be looking for similar success whilst coaching. The team will have two different teams that compete in the ever popular game Fortnite, as well as the cult classic League of Legends, according to Warnock. They will compete against other schools in these games, with the possibility of expanding to more games in the future, pending the success of the team. It will be very exciting to watch the Northern Essex team grow along with the sport.
