College esports in the United States

College esports in the United States is played by teams of amateur student-athletes at American universities and colleges. In the late 2000s, schools began forming esports clubs to play video games in self-organized collegiate tournaments. The first officially recognized varsity esports program was created at Robert Morris University Illinois in 2014.

While there are thousands of schools that participate in collegiate esports competitions, in 2018, there were at least 73 college varsity esports programs, and by 2019 over 130 college varsity programs. College esports is often viewed as a starting path for gamers that aspire to go professional.

Riot Games Collegiate League of Legends

In 2016, the North American Collegiate Championship (NACC) became the University League of Legends (uLoL) Campus Series, run by CSL, after IvyLoL and NACL stopped functioning and many of their staff were hired as Riot Games employees to orchestrate their collegiate activities. In the Fall of 2017, Riot Games announced that it would rebrand again as College League of Legends and switch official partners from CSL to Battlefy. In May 2019, Riot Games announced the formation of the Riot Scholastic Association of America (RSAA) as the governing body for collegiate and high school esports for League of Legends.

Riot Games Collegiate Valorant

In 2021, Red Bull in collaboration with Riot Games introduced the Campus Clutch, a tournament consisting of university teams from 50 countries . This was Riot's first official tournament exclusively for collegiate programs, an open competition that featured regional qualifiers, national finals and an international championship in Madrid.

In 2022, Riot Games would announce the commencement of the first College Valorant Season (CVAL), an official collegiate competition that is ran annually for teams in the United States and Canada. This new structure of collegiate competition in Valorant features regional tournaments across North, South, East and West regions in a registration open for all institutions. Teams were set to participate in a format that included regional group stages and playoff brackets, with the strongest competing in the final championship event. The tournaments were held throughout the academic school year during fall, winter and spring. In 2023, Riot Games entered a 3 year partnership with GGTech, an international esports brand based in Spain that manages and organizes large scale esports tournaments and collegiate esports programs.

Esports Collegiate Conference

The Esports Collegiate Conference was created on June 10, 2020, by member institutions of the Mid-American Conference, to facilitate esports competitions.

National Association of Collegiate Esports

The National Association of Collegiate Esports, otherwise known as NACE or NAC Esports, was founded in 2016. As of 2021, its membership includes over 170 colligate organizations. The organization offers competition in Rocket League, League of Legends, Overwatch, and other titles.

List of colleges and universities with esports teams

References

External links

• National Association of Collegiate Esports
• Esports Collegiate Conference