Always tarred with the same brush, gaming stereotypes typically depict the kid with glasses, bad skin, either console in hand or playing games on a PC, sitting in the darkness of his parents’ basement or garage.

But times they are a changing – it’s cool to be a geek, says Glenn Alexander, spokesperson of the Rush esports event and Xbox MVP. Describing the new gaming archetype as the “digital jock”, the evidence points to this gaming trend taking the country, even the world, by storm.

The jock was always known as the buff sport-confident stud at...