Robert Morris University-Illinois, with its main campus operating in Chicago and its 7,000 students, has become the first American University to set a spot for League of Legends on their list of varsity sports. Starting this September, the "eSport" athletes will join hockey goalies, football quarterbacks, and basketball point guards as varsity athletes on campus.

More than 27 million people play the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game League of Legends on a daily basis. Riot Games, its developer, offered the free to download and play client on October 27, 2009.

Kurt Melcher, the university's associate athletic director, told IGN, "After we looked into League of Legends, frankly I was shocked at the scale and the size, and how passionate the community is," and, "We give scholarships for a variety of different interests, along with traditional sports like football, basketball, soccer. So we thought, 'Why wouldn't we give scholarships for this?'"

Melcher noted that the new scholarship students would receive similar treatment and benefits as the traditional varsity athletes. They'd receive up to 50% off tuition as well as room and board, basically $19,000. RMU plans to recruit three teams consisting of nine players. One will stand as the main starter team, while the other two sit as support squads.

RMU is the first institution in the country to assign varsity status to a video game, "I hope we're not the last school to do what we're doing," said Melcher, "The CSL is so well organized already, but I would love to see it go a step farther. If we're the first of many, that would be spectacular."

Watch the video below for highlights from this years League of Legends Spring 2014 Championships:.