ESports managers will now be trained in the university

Perhaps soon “Shooters” (shooting simulators) and “Fighting” (combat martial arts simulators) will add to the list of disciplines



The Higher School of Economics (HSE) and the Computer Sports Federation of Russia have launched a joint training program for e-sports managers. The professional retraining program is called “ e-Sports Management ”.



The duration of the first program is from December 6, 2017 to June 9, 2018. Then the organizers will decide whether it makes sense to continue it. Classes are held in full-time and part-time by six sessions of four days, and training for these actual 24 days of training costs an unimaginable 200 thousand rubles. For that kind of money, you can "buy" a diploma of professional retraining.



Graduates of the program will be able to find jobs in the following positions: “director (manager) of physical education and sports organization”, “club head”, “head of department (in computer sports)”, “head of department (in computer sports)”, “manager”.



Cybersport - a game in FIFA, Counter-Strike, Dota 2, World of Tanks and other games - takes more and more strong positions in professional sports, including in Russia . Since the spring of 2017 in Russia, gamers can receive sports titles and sports categories. It is hard to believe in this, but they are given the title of "master of sports of Russia", "master of sports of international class" and "honored master of sports of Russia", as real athletes.



The IOC in April 2016 made a formal decision to include e-sports in the program of the Summer Olympic Games (now the IOC chooses specific games that comply with the Olympic principles of friendship and respect , that is, where there is no violence). There are international tournaments with large prize pools and a multimillion audience of viewers. According to estimates by various Newzoo experts, in 2017, global eSports revenues will grow by 41% to $ 696 million, of which $ 517 million will come from revenues from advertising and selling rights, the rest is proceeds from the sale of tickets and branded products. Superdata experts estimate the market at about $ 1 billion. Russia is among the world's leading countries in terms of private investment in eSports. So, in 2015, USM Holdings Alisher Usmanov invested more than $ 100 million in the organizer of cyber sport tournaments Virtus.pro, and another oligarch Yuri Milner invested $ 26 million in Super Evil Megacorp, which created a platform for cybersport competitions.



Obviously, professional management is needed in this area, if that kind of money turns around.



According to the program description on the HSE official website, the listener is “immersed” in the eSports sphere and masters all the skills necessary to manage the eSports project (including any sports, legal, marketing and financial aspects). Lectures will be delivered by university lecturers, as well as experts from big sports and current top managers of sports and eSports organizations, including FragStore CEO Alexander Galustyan, Epic Esports Events general manager Maxim Maslov, Virtus.pro director Roman Dvoryankin and others.



The industry believes that cybersports specialists in Russia are sorely lacking. The founder and co-owner of Winstrike, Yaroslav Komkov, explained the reasons for this situation in a comment to Vedomosti : “In order to work in this industry, it is not enough to love computer games, as well as not enough marketing experience, unless a specialist is interested in computer games. For example, there are companies that can look for managers for themselves throughout the year, since one of the company's requirements is love for the game. ”



E-sports begin to equate to sport in many related areas. For example, some universities accept gamers to study on a par with real athletes, that is, they give them sports scholarships and other relevant benefits. True, there is no such practice in Russia yet. But here, for example, the University of California at Irvine (USA) provides scholarships for players in League Of Legends and Overwatch. One of the leading Korean universities, Chunan University also recognized the equality of cyber sportsmen and ordinary athletes.