As the eSports scene on college campuses continue to get more organized, the Collegiate StarLeague made a major move to grow the space last month, announcing an exclusive partnership with Riot Games to present the 2017 uLoL Campus Series, where CSL will run the tournaments, overseeing critical logistics that include registration, scheduling, qualification, production and broadcasting the upcoming season. The events add to the organization’s slate for the 2016-17 season, with players now able to enter college-level tournaments for titles that include StarCraft 2, League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Vainglory throughout September for cash and scholarship prizes. Play begins next week with registration already topping 675 schools, over 1000 teams and 25,000+ registered gamers.
Cynopsis eSports & Gaming spoke with Neil Duffy, Vice President, College Network & Business Development at WorldGaming – parent company of College StarLeague about the evolution of eSports at universities, the organization’s media plans and what to expect this year.
Duffy on the evolution of collegiate eSports: When I first joined, there wasn’t even a collegiate eSports scholarship program, then the guys at Robert Morris announced that they were going to award scholarships for League of Legends and created a massive stir. That was groundbreaking because campuses always had small pockets of gamers but they were never formalized into clubs in the way they are now with social chairs, presidents, leadership, etc. The dynamic has shifted that past two or three years.
On growth: It’s been a big summer for us. While we are still in the registration phase right now, we are just shy of 700 campuses and we are going to be approaching 30,000 students. Signing this deal with Riot Games just legitimizes our place within the collegiate ecosystem.
On new elements this season: In addition to adding VainGlory, which is a first for us because it is a mobile title, we’re also looking to get into console gaming this winter. We haven’t announced the titles but you can expect titles for PlayStation and Xbox.
On media deals: That is actually one of the most exciting discussions for us right now. People think that there is a great market for our content and there have been some big media properties that have reached out to us over the last few months. Right now, we are looking to choose the right one and build programming that will be compelling and goes beyond the boundaries of just eSports.
