ANTHONY, Texas (KTSM) – Anthony High School was the venue for an Esports tournament on April 15-16 hosted by Gaming Glitch Center. In past events, the group would have to travel to compete but wanted to create a larger event in El Paso for local gamers.

The tournament featured the game Super Smash Bros Ultimate where the participants would compete for the grand prize of $2,000. Hundreds of people were in attendance which was came as a pleasant surprise to organizers like Michelle Brown.

“I’m expecting more of the 30 to 20 people that show up so I’m very surprised that 200 people showed up today. I never would have expected it, especially in El Paso because it’s such a small city I mean obviously growing but still small,” Brown said.

As the sport grows in popularity across the world, universities across the U.S. now have college teams competing against each other. This allows for prospective students to be given scholarships to attend college.

“Their kids get involved and parents get excited because they’re a lot more interested in college especially the type of opportunities that Esports opens up because it’s not just gaming. It’s not professional gaming. They can look into game design. They can look into computer science, a lot of different things that open up for them especially through Esports,” said Hiram Espinosa, Anthony High School Esports coach.

Other organizers, for the event like Samuel Arzola, are hoping to host other large Esports events in El Paso to show gamers the possibilities that come with it.

“The community as well there’s a lot of different things that are there but we can’t get them to know that if we don’t have these kinds of events to show them, ‘Hey this is what you can do. You can be good at this. You can actually make not so much a living, as much make a name for yourself this way,” Arzola said.

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