The Big East Conference has partnered with ESL to bring esports to select schools in the conference at the Big East Esports Invitational that starts on March 19th. There has been a lot of institutional support for collegiate esports recently but this pilot program, backed by industry leaders ESL, will help push participating colleges to esports.
ESL is the largest tournament organizer in esports with Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) and ESL One events drawing over 100,000 spectators. For the Big East, ESL is running a program to gauge student interest in esports.
“The pilot program will assist the [Big East schools] in evaluating the gaming communities that currently exist on their campuses and providing a competitive outlet for interested students,” the conference and ESL wrote in a press release.
Conference support for esports has been a rocky road to date, but Big East commissioner Val Ackerman appears excited about the prospect of esports on campuses.
“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,” he said. “The Big East has a strong, deep sports culture, and the integration of esports on our campuses will only fuel that passion.”
SportTechie Takeaway:
A significant number of schools already have varsity esports programs, but the NCAA is still not involved, so the schools are competing in leagues set up by game developers like Riot, or third party organizations like Tespa.
The Pac-12 announced conference support for esports two years ago but then fell quiet. That prompted most of the schools, led by the varsity program at Utah, to create the PACG and facilitate their own tournaments. Meanwhile the Mountain West showcased esports, as did the varsity program at Boise State, at their conference basketball tournament. The Big Ten Network has a partnership with Riot to broadcast collegiate League of Legends games on TV.
The games set to be played in the Big East are League of Legends and Rocket League. These games are unique as esports because they both come from single game developers in Riot and Psyonix, respectively. That may or may not have something to do with why they were chosen. In addition, League of Legends and Rocket League are both being played by the PACG and by the Mountain West but both of those organizations are also playing games developed by Blizzard — Overwatch and Hearthstone.