Weaving the author's own lived experience with theoretical insights from the fields of game studies, psychology, and anthropology, Esport Play probes and advances current gaming topics such as addiction, skill development, and toxicity. With a focus on League of Legends – one of the flagship esports of our time – Karhulahti explicates what esport play is: documenting and identifying competitive play as a present-day means to satisfy basic human needs. Ultimately, the book presents a theory of psycholudic development that explains and organizes the development of player-play relationships that may last for years.

From the untimely deaths of young athletes to chronic disease among retired players, roiling debates over tackle football have profound implications for more than one million American boys—some as young as five years old—who play the sport every year. In this book, Kathleen Bachynski offers the first history of youth tackle football and debates over its safety. In the postwar United States, high school football was celebrated as a "moral" sport for young boys, one that promised and celebrated the creation of the honorable male citizen. Even so, Bachynski shows that throughout the twentieth century, coaches, sports equipment manufacturers, and even doctors were more concerned with "saving the game" than young boys' safety—even though injuries ranged from concussions and broken bones to paralysis and death. By exploring sport, masculinity, and citizenship, Bachynski uncovers the cultural priorities other than child health that made a collision sport the most popular high school game for American boys. These deep-rooted beliefs continue to shape the safety debate and the possible future of youth tackle football.

How a form of play becomes a sport: players, agents, referees, leagues, tournaments, sponsorships, and spectators, and the culture of professional computer game play. Competitive video and computer game play is nothing new: the documentary King of Kong memorably portrays a Donkey Kong player's attempts to achieve the all-time highest score; the television show Starcade (1982–1984) featured competitions among arcade game players; and first-person shooter games of the 1990s became multiplayer through network play. A new development in the world of digital gaming, however, is the emergence of professional computer game play, complete with star players, team owners, tournaments, sponsorships, and spectators. In Raising the Stakes, T. L. Taylor explores the emerging scene of professional computer gaming and the accompanying efforts to make a sport out of this form of play. In the course of her explorations, Taylor travels to tournaments, including the World Cyber Games Grand Finals (which considers itself the computer gaming equivalent of the Olympics), and interviews participants from players to broadcasters. She examines pro-gaming, with its highly paid players, play-by-play broadcasts, and mass audience; discusses whether or not e-sports should even be considered sports; traces the player's path from amateur to professional (and how a hobby becomes work); and describes the importance of leagues, teams, owners, organizers, referees, sponsors, and fans in shaping the structure and culture of pro-gaming. Taylor connects professional computer gaming to broader issues: our notions of play, work, and sport; the nature of spectatorship; the influence of money on sports. And she examines the ongoing struggle over the gendered construction of play through the lens of male-dominated pro-gaming. Ultimately, the evolution of professional computer gaming illuminates the contemporary struggle to convert playful passions into serious play.

Help athletes achieve optimal performance in the competitive world of gaming. Written by top experts in the field, Conditioning for Esports is the authoritative guide to injury prevention, specialized exercise routines, cognitive enhancement, esport-specific nutrition strategies, and more.

In our latest yearbook, we explore the strategic dynamics and global impact of eSports, highlighting the revolution of intelligent agents, the fusion of traditional sports, and insights into legal and economic challenges. Personal stories showcase the potential for career development within the vibrant gaming community. This edition celebrates the resilience and spirit of eSports, emphasizing its promising future in competitive gaming. Join us in examining the innovations, cultural shifts, and the passionate community driving the industry forward.

Global eSports explores the recent surge of eSports in the global scene and comprehensively discusses people's understanding of this spectacle. By historicizing and institutionalizing eSports, the contributors analyze the rapid growth of eSports and its implications in culture and digital economy. Dal Yong Jin curates a discussion as to why eSports has become a global phenomenon. From games such as Spacewar to Starcraft to Overwatch, a key theme, distinguishing this collection from others, is a potential shift of eSports from online to mobile gaming. The book addresses why many global game players and fans play and enjoy online and mobile games in professional game competitions, and therefore, they investigate the manner in which the transfer to, from and between online and mobile gaming culture is occurring in a specific subset of global youth. The remaining focus identifies the major platforms used to enjoy eSports, including broadcasting and smartphones. By analyzing these unexamined or less-discussed agendas, this book sheds light on the current debates on the growth of global eSports culture.

In an era when college football coaches frequently command higher salaries than university presidents, many call for reform to restore the balance between amateur athletics and the educational mission of schools. This book traces attempts at college athletics reform from 1855 through the early twenty-first century while analyzing the different roles played by students, faculty, conferences, university presidents, the NCAA, legislatures, and the Supreme Court. Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform also tackles critically important questions about eligibility, compensation, recruiting, sponsorship, and rules enforcement. Discussing reasons for reform--to combat corruption, to level the playing field, and to make sports more accessible to minorities and women--Ronald A. Smith candidly explains why attempts at change have often failed. Of interest to historians, athletic reformers, college administrators, NCAA officials, and sports journalists, this thoughtful book considers the difficulty in balancing the principles of amateurism with the need to draw income from sporting events.