The Army is Starting an eSports Team

eSports seems to be growing more and more popular every day, and it’s no surprise there are big organizations who want to ride its popularity to get the attention of today’s youths. So while it makes enough sense for gaming PC producers and major banks to be hosting teams and streams, the United States Army makes less sense. After all, there’s not much in common between a round of Call of Duty and actually… you know, answering the call of duty.

All the same, over on Reddit, the army is inviting servicemen, reserves, and veterans to apply to be part of their eSports team. An “all-army” team, such as it was.

We are actually in the process of standing up two new competitive outreach teams -- an Army eSports team and an Army Functional Fitness team. Both teams will be part of the Marketing and Engagement Brigade based at Fort Knox. They will operate much like the Golden Knights and the Army Marksmanship Unit to create awareness about the Army and the opportunities it provides. This initiative will help make our Soldiers more visible and relatable to today's youth. They will help the Army address the growing disconnect with society.

...Alright then.

They made a point to say that they would not be “recruiting” people directly, but they would support that end, traveling to eSports competitions around the world to compete and show off Army greatness. They also said that these eSports athletes would receive standard army pay, as well as accommodation, which is great for low-level play but if these guys ever got good enough for the big leagues that means they’ll be criminally underpaid.

So that’s interesting. There’s no indication yet exactly what games they’d be playing or when they expect to kick off, but... maybe that information will be made public later.

In the meantime… go army? I guess?