Competitive electronic gaming, also known as eSports, has become such a phenomenon that there are now university teams and scholarships dedicated to the alternative sport.

Competitive gaming is extremely popular overseas in places like South Korea and Japan, where matches of games like Starcraft can sell out stadiums.

It’s also very profitable, generating nearly $200 million dollars in 2016 – a sum predicted to double this year.

The trend is now gaining popularity in Canada. Just last year, Cineplex launched a national video game tournament in hopes of capitalizing on the growing market.

Although international eSports tournaments have been around for over a decade, organized university teams are relatively new.

But eSports producer for TSN, Andrew Robichaud, told CTV News that university play is growing rapidly.

In the U.S., some schools now treat gaming like varsity sports and offer scholarships to top eSport players. In Canada, the University of British Columbia has the biggest eSport club in the country, with more than 800 members, and has come in first at major collegiate competitions two years in a row.

The University of Toronto also offers a scholarship for gamers.

“These athletes […]are not dunking basketballs or taking 100 mile an hour slapshots, but their timing, their dexterity, their decision making, their teamwork, is absolutely parallel,” said Robichaud.

UBC student Benton Chan, 22, plays competitively for his school.

“I probably practice maybe like up to four hours a day,” he told CTV News. “It is all mental and strategic. Mind gaming your opponent and finding out the best moves.”

But it’s not all fun and games; staying on the team means students’ grades can’t slip.

“Kind of like a varsity team [where] you cannot participate in football if failing classes, so we do the same thing,” said UBC eSport association president Victor Ho.

Video games are no longer a pastime for purported basement-dwellers, but are quickly becoming a valid way to pay for school and even make a living.

With a report from CTV’s Melanie Nagy