The announcement also brought back perhaps Ball State's most prominent alumnus to campus, retired talk show host, co-owner of RLL racing and 1969 Ball State graduate David Letterman. STAY INFORMED AND SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM: Subscribe today using the link at the top of this page. If there are other programs in the country that have this sort of partnership, you could probably count them on one hand, Marino said.
In the world of esports, partnering with a professional organization puts Ball State in a unique position in an industry that is rapidly growing at the professional, collegiate and even high school ranks. "We're still, there's still some naysayers to what the power of video games can do for our students, but having a partnership with such an excellent group like RLL Racing goes a long way to kind of proving that argument for us." "It's a big step for us because one of the things as an esports program that we want to do, we do have to sort of fight the current a little bit of the legitimacy argument," Marino said. On Wednesday, Ball State announced a partnership with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) to provide opportunities, including two $5,000 scholarships from the 2022-23 through 2025-26 academic years, to advance the program's mission of growing esports by recruiting and retaining some of the top players in the world to come to Muncie.Ī new varsity athlete: The rise of high school, collegiate esports in Indiana and beyondįor Ball State director of esports, Dan Marino, the partnership helps further legitimize the program's mission of using video games to prepare students for careers beyond college. That was evident in the creation of its 3,611-square-foot esports center, which was inaugurated in April 2021, three months after the creation of its varsity esports team. In the past year, Ball State became a founding member of the Esports Collegiate Conference and has partnered with several community organizations and now aligned with an Ind圜ar organization. MUNCIE, Ind. - Ball State University is all-in on esports. Watch Video: David Letterman visits Ball State to announce esports scholarship