This week, the Collegiate StarLeague launched its eighth season as North America’s largest independent collegiate esports league where teams from 700+ schools participate in tournaments featuring the world’s most popular titles, including League of Legends, DotA2, Counterstrike: Global Offensive, Vain Glory, Starcraft 2 and Madden. It also marks the launch of CSL’s media partnership with Campus Insiders, in which the digital network will share CSL’s written and video content across its organic platforms as well as with digital and OTT partners, such as Apple TV, SlingTV, Verizon Go90, Twitter and Facebook. CSL’s VP of Business Development, Neil Duffy, discusses the impact of the partnership and CSL’s goals to grow and market collegiate esports:
On the deal with Campus Insiders: CSL has been producing hundreds of great pieces each year of written and video content, from feature articles, to game previews and recaps, to player and team profiles. But they only lived on cstarleague.com, so unless you played in our tournaments, you probably didn’t see them. We started looking for content partners, and while we spoke with many other linear and digital networks, Campus Insiders seemed to be the right partner to collaborate and grow with out of the gate, given their distribution platform and commitment to covering all things college sports.
On goals: We want to be the hub for all things college esports! Initially, it was just about taking our content mainstream, but it’s evolved now to include creating live events on campuses and beyond, and working closely with universities and conferences to educate them about the rapid growth of our ecosystem and continue to build that out.
On the role of the NCAA: We don’t have a relationship with the NCAA. There are a few schools participating in CSL tournaments that are creating varsity scholarship programs, but most of our teams are club-based and organized by student leaders passionate about esports. We do have certain eligibility mandates– all of our collegiate gamers must be registered, full-time students and in good academic standing to compete. But our players are allowed to participate in college and pro events, and we give prize money to our tournament winners. Neither of those things would obviously fly with the NCAA right now. The monetary component isn’t something we’d ever want to forego, because it’s a huge benefit to, and nice reward for, our players. The winner pools will only continue to increase as the popularity of collegiate gaming grows and we want to work with any university in North America interested in building an esports program.
On brands: A lot of companies and media buyers are still feeling their way through the esports space, so part of our job entails educating brands about what we’re doing and how they can create an authentic footprint here. I’ve heard a lot of agencies say gamers are hard to market to; that couldn’t be further from the truth! The majority of esports players and fans fit the exact profiles of Millennials and GenZs brands covet. And again, because esports lives outside the NCAA’s purview, gamers are allowed to be brand ambassadors, allowed to get paid, brands can reap the benefits of our players’ success and public profiles. Additionally, while esports is starting to see more visibility on TV, it gained its notoriety online, so we know as well (if not better) than anyone how to create powerful, customized activations that engage people on their second and third screens.
