When we talk about careers in eSports, most of the time our minds go directly to being a gamer, to playing video games and sometimes we think about, wow, the only real career in eSports is to be what's called a pro gamer. I have heard anecdotally that it is more difficult to become a pro esports player than it is to be drafted into the NFL. I mean, that's an amazing statistic, but it is true. So what kind of careers are available if you have a student or if you are interested in a career in eSports?
Well, you have to think very widely about what you can do in the industry of eSports. These things would be things like software development or working for companies that build the games. You could get a degree in computer science. It might be in hardware or networking technology. It might be in marketing, it might be in HR or it might be in social media management. There's a whole realm of jobs that are available in the eSports industry.
Managing a location like this, for instance, is a career because we put these things all over the place. Being a general manager in a franchise like ours, where you can oversee multiple locations that are in this particular industry. You can get a job as a caster, meaning you're the announcer of games that may be streamed on Twitch or some other platform. The list of industries that you can be involved in is endless.
What about fitness? Fitness. People think, oh, my goodness, what are you talking about fitness, or working out? Most pro-Esports teams have a designated time every single day when they have to work out, they have to have a nutritionist, and they have to have things to help them be incredibly strong, because sitting at one of these stations for 12 hours at a time playing a game and being completely focused, is incredibly difficult. So the way that we have learned in the industry to overcome that is we have to get gamers into the gym. Well, if you send them to the gym, guess what? You're going to need a trainer, right? You're going to need a nutritionist to help them.
The picture that I want to paint for you is that when you think about careers in eSports, do not limit it to just being a gamer. Okay? That is one part of it, but there are lots of aspects around that that helped to support the industry.
An easy way to understand this is just to think about traditional sports, right? So if you think about a baseball team, we're here in Springfield, so we think about the Kansas City Royals or the St. Louis Cardinals and you think about the head office of what it takes to run that organization. It takes a lot more than just Pujols coming up to bat and hoping he's going to hit a home run. Of course, we may not be able to ever see that again, because he's retired.
You get the idea. It takes trainers, it takes people to help him work out. It takes analysts to do that. There are people announcing the game. There are lots of activities that are real careers, real careers. I know that because this is not just a location here in Springfield. We are a franchise.
Our headquarters for our franchise is not in this building. It's down on the campus of Missouri State University in a place called the efactory. And we have lots of staff that do lots of things to help this run and they are not all gamers. They do lots of different typical career things, but they are in the industry of eSports. So, as you're talking with your child about being in this industry, make sure that they don't feel constricted t, I just have to be great at Valorant or I have to be great at Rocket League or League of Legends. There are other things that they can use their skills for. Because people have passions for one thing, and they just want to work in that industry. There are lots of people that work in Kansas City for the Chiefs that are not football players. It's the same thing with eSports
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Contender eSports
405 N Jefferson Ave
Springfield, MO 65806
☎️ 417-501-4072
