How to Become an Esports Coach
With video games and esports becoming more popular by the day, the prospect of coaching other players has also become a legitimate career path. According to ZipRecruiter, the average yearly salary as a full-time esports coach is $62,905. With the average living wage in 25 largest US metro areas at $57,013, a coaching career has the potential to provide a comfortable living.
Because esports coaching is still a newly formed career, many are unsure of where to start, and how to transition their passion of video games into a life-long, full time job. In this article, we’ll showcase an overview of the steps you can take to become the esports coach you’ve always dreamed to be.
Step 1: Be Knowledgeable About a Game You Like
An obvious first step is to find a video game you’re passionate about, and to become knowledgeable in it. Your best bet is to find games that already have an established esports community. If the game you’ve set your eyes on doesn’t have an esports community, try to find an online game that has a robust playerbase and receives frequent updates by developers.
Although it might be tempting to believe that you have to be in elite ranks in order to be eligible as a coach, that often isn’t the case. The skills required of a coach mainly consist of having sophisticated game knowledge, as well as the capability to teach others in a way that they can understand. You don’t need to have good mechanics in a game to have knowledge of the game, though it can certainly be an asset.
Step 2: Improve Your Esports Coaching Skills
Now that you’re knowledgeable about the game, the second step is to be able to teach someone what you know, which can be a challenge all in itself. Many coaching qualities fall under social communication skills, which include establishing good rapport, establishing learning outcomes and processes, and motivating your players.
One of the most important skills to learn is the ability to help and support someone from their own perspective. For example, take a look at this image here:
Source: personal screenshot
Those who have played League of Legends would understand the following sentence, but for those who don’t play the game, if I told you that Bard needs to guard the Malzahar and Belveth from the Jhin’s Curtain Call by doing a double stun on a wall, you would likely have no idea what I’m talking about. As an up and coming coach, your role is to recognize the knowledge level of your players, and to adapt your communication to speak in a way they understand by looking in their shoes.
A few ways you can improve your coaching skills are to offer coaching to your friends who play the same game, practicing explaining the game to non-gamers, or as the next step says…
Step 3: Participate in Formal Coaching Opportunities
Once you’ve gained sufficient game knowledge and feel confident in your abilities to teach and support others, the next step would be to accrue credibility for yourself by getting involved in formal coaching opportunities. This can take the form of coaching high school teams, being a head coach for a university or academy team, or coaching for established organizations, like Vanta!
As a youth esports coaching organization, we provide you with great opportunities to learn and improve essential coaching skills needed to turn your passion into a career. As a starting coach, you will mostly be coaching players who are new to the game, which means you’ll need to look at their learning journey from their perspective and explain the game in a way they understand. As you gain more experience with us, you will also have the opportunity to coach both intermediate teams, as well as the opportunity to be a private coach as well. We’ve also established a supportive online platform which consists of experienced coaches who are always willing to assist in your career journey as well!
If any opportunities above sound enticing to you, then check out our Indeed profile, which lists all the available games that we offer coaching for, and begin your own personal career journey!