A new sports arena debuted at UC Irvine on Friday night. But instead of a field, it features a sleek-looking room with top-of-the-line gaming computers.

Students lined up to check it out – by some estimates, some 1,200 of them.

“I think it’s amazing how our school got this,” said Evan Phu, 18, a freshman from Temple City who is interested in computer engineering.

School officials joined students and gaming celebrities for a grand opening of UCI’s new eSports Arena, the first of its kind in a public university.

The arena, a 3,500-square-foot indoor center, features 80 high-powered gaming computers and other game systems as well as a small webcasting studio that will broadcast games live.

Five new students were recruited to participate on a new team that will represent UCI by competing in tournaments featuring the most popular video game in the world, “League of Legends.”

The students each received a scholarship worth $5,610. That was a big inducement for some of the recipients.

“I didn’t want to go to a college that required me to put myself in student debt. But it’s not just the scholarship. The formation of the team enticed me to come to UCI,” said James Lattman, 21, a freshman from Hacienda Heights who has been playing League semiprofessionally since high school graduation.

“It’s exciting to be part of the beginning of what could eventually be something huge,” Lattman said.

Other League players admitted to UCI and the league team are: Parsa Baghai, a 20-year-old from Mission Viejo known as Frostalicious; Youngbin Chung, 22, a South Korean immigrant who moved to UCI from the Bay area; Loc Tran, 21, of San Ramon, who transferred from San Jose State University; and Lyubomir Spasov, 23, a gamer originally from Bulgaria known as Bloodwater.

The school is looking for five more players among its students and will have tryouts next month. UCI also plans to hire a coach for the team.

UCI officials said they are looking to carve out a niche in the fast-growing field of e-sports, but they are not focusing exclusively on the competitive aspect of gaming.

“The uniqueness is that it’s open to everybody. And we are looking at it holistically,” said Mark Deppe, UCI’s e-sports acting director.

The eSports Arena will be open to students and the general public for an hourly fee of $4 per hour.

On Friday evening, the outdoor courtyard of the Student Center turned into a party, with many students also gathered at outdoor tables to play computer games while others stood in long lines to collect raffle tickets and some swag.

The arena features 80 custom PCs donated by iBUYPOWER, a Southern California-based game systems company. Oomba, an Irvine-based company that manages video game tournaments and live-streams them, is donating $400,000 to UCI over four years and will webcast competitions worldwide.

College Magazine ranked UCI last year as the top school for gamers in the nation. With over 300 members, the school’s Association of Gamers has the highest membership of any club on campus. And the university offers a computer game science major.

The new eSports Arena and League team will build on that and become “a point of pride,” Deppe said.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7829 or rkopetman@ocregister.com