THIS IS THE MOST ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE, AND INCLUSIVE SPORT.”
Today, Playvs is powering up for its first full season, which will run from February through May in high schools across 15 states (and counting). It’s the only time in the NFHS’S 100-year existence that it has completely handed over the operation of a sport to another organization. In addition to receiving fees of about $64 per student, per season, from participating schools, Playvs has the right to operate all online and real-world e-sports competitions and partner with game publishers to bring their titles into high schools. To reassure educators, Parnell is choosing his first titles carefully. League of Legends, for example, is a multiplayer game that encourages teamwork and strategy.
Some critics recoil at the idea of school-sanctioned e-sports. “We wouldn’t bring gambling into high schools, because we know it wouldn’t be good for kids,” says Hilarie Cash, cofounder and chief clinical officer of the Restart Life clinic, outside of Seattle, which treats addiction to video games and other digital technologies. But Mark Koski, CEO of NFHS Network, the organization’s video platform, sees e-sports as a way to engage disenfranchised teens: “We want students who are currently not in athletic activities to be involved in the school community.”
Parnell has an even bigger vision. “This is the most accessible, affordable, and inclusive sport at the high school level,” he says. “If we grow, the e-sports [industry] grows.” He aims to build the same kind of recruiting and scholarship infrastructure around gaming that exists for other sports. Tobias Sherman, a former global head of e-sports talent at WME/IMG (now Endeavor) who founded the gaming studio Foundry IV earlier this year, shares this perspective: “As an agent, [I was] always looking for anything that supports the ecosystem and allows players to reach their full potential.” He sees Playvs as an opportunity not only to develop new athletes, but also to help parents and teachers “understand there’s a pathway to a career.”
It’s not just fame and prize money at stake. With some of the biggest brands in the world acting as funders, sponsors, and headhunters, e-sports can get young people interested in (and scouted for) careers in gaming and tech. Pro gamer Lester Chen, for example, is now a global head of emerging gaming partnerships at Youtube. The e-sports job board Hitmarker posted nearly 2,500 openings in the space for the first half of 2018. Gaming can help “students think more critically from an engineering and design perspective,” says Len Annetta, a professor at East Carolina University who researches gaming. “A lot of kids who aren’t succeeding in school play video games. They have an interest in learning what’s under the hood.”
Parnell knows as well as anyone how a future career can present itself in untraditional ways. “It’s like having somebody open the door for you, and you gotta find your seat,” he says. “I didn’t just find a seat, though. I took it.” For now, it seems that the schools most in need of those opened doors will have to wait. The Playvs platform requires equipment specs (strong Wi-fi, CPU power, and PCS with high-quality graphics cards) that can be prohibitively expensive. Parnell acknowledges that some schools have been benched because they can’t afford the technology—a missed opportunity given the dearth of black and brown players in e-sports.
The plan, Parnell says, is to get video-game publishers and other brand partners to help refurbish computer labs and cover participation costs. “We’re focusing on narrowing that wealth gap,” he says. There may be another young Ceo-in-themaking who’s depending on it.