I’m torn on these types of things

I’m torn on these types of things
by ravenium (2021-09-01 10:22:04)
Edited on 2021-09-01 10:24:06

In reply to: Good for him. posted by mocopdx

I worked video gaming tournaments right as the money scene started to drop in. Companies would come in and sponsor teams of kids for thousands, the kids got free stuff, everyone loved it.

Unfortunately the darker side was the exploitation. Greedy parents, people with no financial sense. I watched a mother break down in tears because her son’s prize money wasn’t getting awarded until 6-8 weeks, and she needed the money for rent because she’d spent it on getting him a new PC.

I absolutely agree these are legal adults who were more or less being profited off of by universities, and now they are free to make those sorts of deals. However, I worry that this opens up the doorway to a new category of sleazebags who will attempt to exploit them in other ways, not to mention greedy parents. I think I would have been more comfortable with escrow revenue sharing - university branding is a lot of the draw, thus a lot of the money.

I realize my naive pipe dream of having a separate for-profit league and a borderline club athletics league will never come to fruition, but I’d love to see a place for kids that want to use their talents along with their academic capabilities. The genie isn’t going back in the bottle, though.