The billion-dollar industry of competitive gaming, also known as esports, has gotten a bigger footprint in Greater Cleveland. Ethlete Lab Academy, which opened in Lakewood this March, is just one addition to a world of resources that make Cleveland an esports hub.
Ethlete Lab Academy aims to be an inclusive space for kids between the ages of 8 to 18 to take classes and join camps to engage in gaming, coding and other tech-related activities. The camps and classes allow kids to explore their interests and discover potential career paths in the gaming and technology industries.
"We want to provide education to the youth early on to these different careers like cybersecurity and game design. And we feel there's no better way than meshing those together with gaming," says Mike Newton, co-founder of the academy and former head coach of the Warriors Gaming Squad, the Golden State Warriors NBA 2K League affiliate.
When kids are not getting an education in tech skills, they will also learn real-life skills when gaming, such as working as a team, strategy and leadership skills. One of esports' main appeals is that anyone can be a gamer, a principle on which Ethlete Lab Academy was founded.
"We're really trying to create a safe space that's inclusive for everyone who wants to come participate in gaming,” says co-founder and COO Abby Ayers.
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The space consists of a private classroom that can accommodate 12 students, as well as an open PC area with 20 stations and a lounge for console and virtual reality gaming, offering anywhere from 25 to 30 different games.
Parents can rent the lounge to host parties and events for their kids, or they can get a casual pass to sample some video games for a day.
"We want the kids to leave our space wanting to come back, and we want the parents to know that we got winners,” says Newton.
(Photo courtesy Ethlete Lab Academy)
The Ethlete Lab Academy is not the only place parents can bring their kids to try out esports. Many middle and high schools in Greater Cleveland offer esports teams, including Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Cleveland High School for Digital Arts, Avon High School, North Royalton High School, North Ridgeville High School and Laurel School.
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Cleveland also used to host a professional esports team with the Cavs Legion, which was a part of the NBA 2K league, before the league was paused last year as it undergoes a revamp.
Cedar Point has even jumped into the esports game with a 1,000-square-foot state-of-the-art gaming facility with the goal of being a go-to for esports athletes and gamers. Those feeling competitive can enter into one of Cedar Point's many esports tournaments like the Fortnite Boardwalk Battle Royale in late March, to win a prize pool of $500.
That money prize is one of the smaller amounts that esports tournaments offer. Professional esports athletes around the world compete in larger tournaments, averaging millions of dollars in winnings.
Ohio hosts 40 universities with esports programs, including Case Western Reserve University, the University of Akron and Cleveland State University.
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Those good enough can be recruited by collegiate esports programs just like any other athlete playing any other sport. While parents might not be on board at first with sending their kids to college to play video games, CSU's esports program offers scholarships and benefits that are similar to its other collegiate teams’ offerings.
“The amount of friends that I've made now on the team and the amount of general stuff that I do now, if you had told me when I joined in January of two years ago, would I really have imagined it'd be like that? No," says Adam Schuler, a student-athlete on Cleveland State’s Overwatch team.
(Photo by Jaden Stambolia)
There are other opportunities for students and athletes to get involved in the esports program to gain skills and explore future career options in broadcasting, social media and content creation, and esports. Schuler even volunteers as assistant director of esports.
CSU currently fields seven teams that compete in League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros. and Valorant.
The esports program recruits athletes nationally and internationally, just as other collegiate sports teams do. There are around 40 student-athletes, mostly from around Ohio, plus three out-of-towners from Texas, Massachusetts and Canada. The esports program at CSU is co-ed, with three women on the team.
“The majority of our players are local. A lot of them are Ohio. We get a good bit from Columbus as well,” says Farrell.
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The students have uniforms with their gamertags on them. The team practices, holds its student-athletes to a GPA standard, travels to compete and even has a home facility that hosts 30 computers and a Nintendo Switch for competitions.
Farrell even has a certain type of person and player he wants to recruit to join the program. He wants players with interpersonal skills who can work as a team and who can hold themselves accountable in the classroom.
“We tend to look for those kids that have been on teams before, but just because you're not on a team doesn't mean that you can't compete here,” says Farrell. “[We’re] bringing in a lot of kids from a lot of different backgrounds.”
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(Photo by Jaden Stambolia)
Esports athletes can get hurt like normal athletes. CSU's esports program works closely with the Cleveland Clinic Esports Medicine Program to address esports' physical and mental aspects that require specialized medical care and training.
Farrell recounted a story of a team athlete from a couple of years ago. The athlete had no feeling in her pinky. She played for 16 hours a day for multiple years and needed gloves.
“We brought in the clinic, and they [said], ‘The way that you're holding your mouse and the way that your mouse is designed is causing impingement on your elbow, which is causing numbness in your pinky,’” Farrell said.
Dr. Dominic King, director of the Esports Medicine Program at the Cleveland Clinic, says that some of the common injuries and health issues faced by esports athletes include repetitive strain injuries, vision problems and mental health concerns.
“This is definitely a competition. This is a sport. These are athletes, and they're getting injured,” says King. “Some of them, because of overuse injuries with their hands or their wrists, some of them with vision issues or headaches, and others just because they may not be focusing on physical health as much.”
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For parents or coaches looking to help their kid or teen play at the collegiate level or go pro, it all starts when they are young.
According to Farrell and Schuler, an esports athlete's prime is in their teens to early 20s. Parents can start enrolling their kids in Ethlete Lab Academy’s first camp this April, while spots last, to develop skills and train to be esports athletes.
Parents can also download the Cleveland Clinic’s gamer health guide to help develop healthy habits.
"Train like your pros. Your pros don't just sit and game and grind and eat Pringles and potato chips on the couch and then sit on the couch for the rest of the time or watching their tablet,” says King. “They walk, they run, they do resistance training, they do mental activities, they do stimulus type of activities, they use different kinds of training."
(Photo courtesy Ethlete Lab Academy)
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