In this photo taken Friday, June 21, 2013, Kyeong Hyun SeleCT , left, joins seven of the world's best StarCraft

At the Kansas Athletics Inc. Board of Directors meeting I attended earlier this week, this most definitely did NOT come up. But apparently there are a small number of other universities out there now offering athletic scholarships to video gamers.

While they had to look outside Kansas University to find subjects receiving such scholarships, some KU researchers recently authored a study about these “e-sports” athletes. Researchers are attempting to shed light on a niche they say is growing and has potential to be a recruiting tool and moneymaker for schools, according to a recent KU news release. The study examined things like whether these students consider themselves athletes, their motivations and whether participating adds to their “social capital” the way it does for traditional college athletes.

Some background, according to KU:

In the 2015-16 school year, five U.S. schools — all relatively small, tuition-driven institutions — offered scholarships through their athletic departments for students to participate in e-sports. Dozens more have club teams of students competing without scholarships. In 2015 ESPN2 first aired a show titled “Heroes of the Dorm” in which University of California-Berkeley students competed against Arizona State University in a multiplayer online battle arena game called “Heroes of the Storm.” (Oops, missed that episode.) Students compete remotely or at a shared location against other teams in online, strategy-based games such as “Halo,” “League of Legends” and “Heroes of the Storm.” E-sports are not currently sanctioned by the NCAA or NAIA.

And some of what the KU researchers — led by faculty adviser Jordan Bass, assistant professor of sport management — found:

• Gamers acknowledged stereotypes against e-sports athletes. “Many people would say they’re ‘just a bunch of nerds,’ but they viewed themselves as athletes,” Claire Schaeperkoetter, KU doctoral student and one of the study’s authors, said in KU’s news release. “They felt being part of a team contributed positively to their experience at the university.”

• As justifications for the athlete designation, respondents cited “intense” practice hours — as many as six hours a day, six days a week — and the skills and focus they employed to compete at a high level. Plus, they said, they have coaches dedicated to working solely with them.

• Students’ motivations varied, but one particularly surprised researchers: They dreamed of making a career out of their sport. “A lot of them said they wanted to go pro,” Bass said, in KU’s news release. “Whether it was to continue playing and making money, or to meet people in the business and have a career in the industry. In that sense they’re just like many other college athletes.”

• College athletics have long been shown to help athletes and students gain social capital on campus. Not so much for e-sports participants. They reported they were proud to wear their school’s athletic apparel on campus and became close with their teammates, but didn’t necessarily gain ground outside the team or interact much with other athletes.

The take-home point, according to Bass, is this: “It doesn’t matter if we think e-sports are actually sports or not. Athletic administrators across the country have determined it is sport. It’s a highly competitive activity that requires a special set of skills. If we can accept that, it can give a whole new set of people a college sporting experience.”

The day athletic scholarships for video gamers come to KU, unless KUsports.com beats me to it, I promise I will let you know.

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• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage at KUToday.com. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.