A whole lotta college news this week. The BIG EAST Conference and ESL are joining forces to launch the BIG EAST Esports Invitational Powered by ESL, starting March 19 with finals broadcast on April 14-15 on Twitch. Participating colleges have the option to compete in Rocket League and League of Legends by Riot Games as ESL conducts matches online on ESL Play. “ESL’s extensive experience in esports will be a major asset as we begin to build an exciting new student program under the BIG EAST umbrella,” said Val Ackerman, BIG EAST Commissioner. “The BIG EAST has a strong, deep sports culture, and the integration of esports on our campuses will only fuel that passion.”
Collegiate StarLeague is bringing the 2018 North American Collegiate Grand Finals to Huntington Beach, where teams will compete at the new esports venue of Ultimate Media Ventures from April 27-29 and $100,000 in scholarships on the line. Individual and team titles will be awarded across Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends Junior Varsity League as well as invitational and showcase events for Super Smash Bros.WiiU & Melee, Fortnite, H1Z1 and Madden NFL 18. More than 38,000 students from over 1,500 university and college campuses in the United States and Canada have registered and competed in CSL leagues and tournaments. CSL also confirmed that Twitch, through the Twitch Student program, will be the exclusive streaming and distribution partner for the Grand Finals and all playoff matches.
The National Association of Collegiate Esports locked in a partnership agreement with the National Junior College Athletic Association, the governing body of athletics for 500 two-year colleges and universities in the US. The partnership recognizes NACE as the governing body of collegiate esports and marks the second endorsement by a traditional governing body of collegiate athletics with the first coming from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. “The needs and challenges that exist in collegiate esports are the same for two and four year institutions,” said Michael Brooks, NACE Executive Director. “The partnership with NJCAA will allow NACE to provide support and resources to two year institutions with an interest in offering esports.”
Wrapping up the college news (we may have to keep a permanent section), the American Video Game League announced plans to partner with Beachcon and Thunder Gaming to “develop the largest gaming festival dedicated to collegiate esports in the US, titled April Anarchy as AVGL’s national collegiate esports championship runs alongside Beachcon’s student gaming festival. The championship event will feature the top two collegiate teams in the nation from CS:GO and Dota 2 competing for $20,000 in scholarship prizes.
Cynopsis Esports, in partnership with the Esports Advertising Bureau and Player 2, is proud to announce the 2018 Esports Upfront presentation taking place on April 24 at Yale Club in NYC. Select brands, agencies and media buyers will be shown a slate of opportunities for partnerships from around the industry, anchored by heavyweight companies such as Major League Gaming. Marketers will hear how they can activate and engage by leveraging properties from the most popular titles and tournaments to up-and-coming leagues, from mobile play to teams to key streamers/influencers. Note: this is NOT a conference, as the event is designed solely to connect buyers with some of the most interesting esports properties in the market. We’ll reveal more in coming weeks but looking forward to seeing everyone there.
Psyonix announced that Season 5 of the Rocket League Championship Series will now have Snickers as a sponsor. The brand will join the likes of State Farm and Old Spice as partners for the RLCS. is underway, and it’s been announced that Snickers has jumped on board as the official sponsor. Snickers has joined the ranks of State Farm and Old Spice as partners of the RLCS. The regular season will run for five weeks with teams playing best-of-five games.
Overwatch League’s Los Angeles Valiant unveiled “Be Valiant,” a four-event community initiative intended to target and pay tribute to several distinct communities in southern California. From March through June, the Valiant will host monthly large-scale events across Los Angeles targeting specific fan groups including a “Community Block Party” on March 24, the “LA Valiant Fan Art Showcase” on April 13-15, “Girls in Gaming Summit” in May and a “LA Valiant Pride Party” on June 10. “Los Angeles is a culturally diverse city, and we are a culturally diverse organization. The local franchise model of Overwatch League gives us the opportunity to literally go into our market, Los Angeles, and connect directly and specifically to individual fans and fan groups often neglected or left behind,” said LA Valiant CEO Noah Whinston. “With our ‘Be Valiant’ events, we are taking active measures to spread our organizational beliefs of inclusivity, diversity, and sense of belonging.”
Spain’s La Liga isn’t launching its first esports competition alone, announcing a partnership with McDonald’s for McDonald’s Virtual La Liga eSports. The first stage of the online qualification process begins March 19 and will be played on ArenaGG, a gaming platform from LVP, while stage two begins on April 16. The 32 participants who qualify will compete each week until they’re knocked out of the tournament.
In other sponsorship news, Overwatch Contenders NA landed Old Spice as an official partner. During this year’s Season 1 of Overwatch Contenders North America, the grooming brand will take part in broadcast activations and product sampling at Contenders events.
DreamHack extended its partnership with Monster Energy for another two years. The deal sees the energy drink brand serve as the Global Strategic Partner to DreamHack through 2019 along with sponsoring each festival and esports tournament produced by DreamHack.
Turtle Beach inked a new partnership with Gfinity to become the official audio partner of the Gfinity Elite Series for Season Three and Season Four. Ten pro teams will be using Turtle Beach’s Elite Pro Tournament Gaming Headset and Tactical Audio Controller.
ESL is partnering with Gameflip, a marketplace for gaming digital goods, making Gameflip an exclusive partner for ESL Pro League Season 7, the key Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament run by ESL. In addition to working together with ESL to drive awareness for the Gameflip marketplace and its FLP crypto-token to an audience of more than 180 million gamers, Gameflip will sponsor the Preshow for the entire online season as well as the finals at Verizon Theatre in Dallas.
Turner & IMG’s ELEAGUE is back on Friday, following live NCAA March Madness coverage on TBS. The new tournament will feature the first-ever ELEAGUE | TEKKEN Team Takedown. Richard Lewis will host the show, with casting, match analysis and player interviews provided by Reepal “Rip” Parbhoo, Steve “Tasty Steve” Scott, Stephen “Sajam” Lyon, Mark “MarkMan” Julio and Michele Morrow.
Elastic Media is relaunching as Blink, described as a pioneering mobile-first esports platform. Blink will focus on offering a mobile-first platform that’s custom built to “dramatically increase interactivity between all erports players and their favorite games.” “When we looked at eSports content, and specifically gameplay video, we discovered an exciting opportunity hidden in plain sight: these games were designed to play, not to watch,” CEO Ronen Shoval said. “But the enormous worldwide growth in video gaming has already demonstrated huge spectator appeal at the professional level.”
Riot Games is launching Must Watch Matches on its League of Legends esports platforms, described as “a packaged rebroadcast of the three most exciting games from each week of LPL, LCK, EU LCS, and NA LCS.” Must Watch Matches runs twice on Tuesdays for both EU and NA audiences at 1p and 9p with matches decided by a group of casters from each of the four regions, airing on Lolesports, YouTube and Twitch.
Facebook continues to gobble up esports rights. Gfinity is the latest company to announce a partnership, streaming digital broadcasts of the Gfinity Elite Series esports tournaments exclusively on Facebook throughout 2018. The arrangement covers the UK and extends to new territories which are part of Gfinity’s global expansion plans with the exception of Australia and starts with immediate effect with the Gfinity Elite Series Season Three in the UK.
A new poll from the Washington Post-University of Massachusetts Lowell reveals that almost three-quarters of Americans ages 14-to-21 either played or watched multiplayer online games or competitions in the previous year while half of adults under 30 have played or watched online games. Nearly as many Americans ages 14-21 are fans of esports (38%) as are fans of professional football (40%), with teen and young adult gamers significantly more likely to be fans of football than non-gamers.
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins officially became the most followed streamer on Twitch, with over 150,000 monthly subscribers and 3 million followers on the platform. Following the mark, he told audiences that “I want to be at five million followers by the end of the year on Twitch, minimum. And we’ve gained almost two million followers in, like, a month so the sky’s the limit.”
Infinite Esports and Entertainment added Obey Alliance to its portfolio, with the newly-acquired company boasting over 500,000 YouTube subscribers on its main channel. “Our plans now are for expansion: push for further growth in our esports initiatives, solidify the best possible foundation in the industry for our content creators to grow the brand, and finally – provide a positive experience for all contributors and individuals, uplifting and supporting those responsible for Obey’s continued success,” the company posted following the announcement.
For the second year in a row, the University of Southern California and the Southern Methodist University were ranked as the best schools to study game design, according to the Princeton Review. The complete listing and ranks can be found here for undergraduate and here for postgraduate.
Valve is opening the doors to Dota Plus, a subscription platform that will offer players additional features for $3.99 a month, including hero levelling and challenges, and free entry to the weekly Battle Cup where players can compete for reward shards.
Twitch Prime users are in line for free games each month. The platform unveiled Free Games With Prime, where a selection of PC games will be made available each month, starting today with Superhot, Shadow Tactivs, Tales from Candlekeep, Oxenfree and Mr. Shifty.
Super League Gaming CEO Ann Hand has joined the Board of Advisors for the upcoming Esports Business Summit, produced by Cynopsis, Event Marketer and Chief Marketer from Oct. 1-3 out of Las Vegas.
