Kim Dong-hwan is the sixty-third best StarCraft II player in the world. Which is good enough to play competitions that fill stadiums and to fly all over the world in search of million-dollar prize money.
Kim had flown back and forth to the U.S. so many times in the last three years that he’d exhausted the limits of a visa waiver that he was using to get back and forth for his competitions. When the waiver ran out he applied for a student visa to the U.S. but was denied.
But last week the U.S. found a solution, granting Kim a five-year P-1A visa, the same visa given to professional athletes.
This marks the second time the U.S. has recognized a professional gamer as an athlete, having granted an athlete’s visa to a professional League of Legends player this summer. In both cases, the game publishers helped the players obtain their visas, lobbying U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on their behalf.
What seems to be emerging is a threshold of commercial viability social organization that a game needs to meet in order to qualify for athlete visas. Like in the sporting world, the issue likely comes down to money. Pro athletes who help drive multi-billion dollar industries will have no problem obtaining athlete visas, but a yogi looking for an athlete visa to come on an extended yoga retreat will probably get denied. Meanwhile games like League of Legends and StarCraft that can generate massive crowds and revenue will start to see its players recognized more and more like sports stars.
This year’s League of Legends championship filled the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Next year’s StarCraft II finals, which Kim will compete in, has a grand prize of $1.6 million. Which is almost as much as the $1.9 grand prize at the U.S. Open tennis tournament. It’s a high-stakes competition, to say the least.
Just don’t expect to be granted a visa to travel the world for getting really good at Angry Birds anytime soon.
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