College esports in the United States

College esports in the United States began around 2009. Various schools began forming esports clubs to play any number of video games in collegiate tournaments. 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.[1]

An esports arena at an American university.

Collegiate Starleague

Collegiate Starleague (CSL) began in 2009 as the first official intercollegiate gaming organization in the world, with 25 schools participating in their inaugural competition of the game StarCraft: Brood War, at which the UC Berkeley team took home the victory.[2] Since then CSL has expanded into a variety of games based on their popularity any given year (15 titles in 2019) and it claims to host over 1,800 colleges and universities worldwide with 55,000 cumulative players actively competing in their league.[3]

Tespa

Tespa began as the Texas eSports Association at the University of Texas at Austin. After a series of successful events, Tespa was acquired by and became a subsidiary of Blizzard Entertainment in 2013.[4][5]. Tespa has since grown to employ a team of over 80 students and graduates across the United States and Canada.[6]

Tespa has transitioned to support primarily titles owned by Blizzard Entertainment. As of 2019, they hosted competitions for Overwatch, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and StarCraft II. In 2017 Tespa touted 220 official chapters, with competing teams from over 500 schools.[7][6] In May 2019, Tespa hosted the Collegiate Esports Championship in Houston, Texas.

Electronic Gaming Federation

The Electronic Gaming Federation (EGF) was founded by Rochester Institute of Technology alumni Tyler Schrodt in 2015.[8] More recently the gaming organization runs tournaments at the nation level for the High School scene and Collegiate scene. The EGF hosts a regular season for Rocket League and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The EGF partners up with Division I conferences to have colleges from those conferences face off against each other in competition. They also have a conference called the "Power 5" which includes universities in some of the "Power 5" conferencesThe EGF will begin a new competition on April 20th, 2020 called the "Power Series", for Division I that will focus on Rocket League.[8]

Riot Games Collegiate League of Legends

Starting in Fall 2011, Riot Games partnered with Collegiate Starleague (CSL) in their inaugural collegiate tournament season. [9] CSL continued to run Riot's collegiate tournaments through the 2013 CSL Finals. In Fall 2013, Riot Games announced their official North American Collegiate Championship (NACC) program, which was run by a combination of the three organizations CSL, IvyLoL, and North American Challenger League (NACL).[10] In 2016, the NACC evolved into 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.[11][12][13] 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.[14] 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.[15] With these changes Riot also sought out collegiate conference partnerships that allowed schools to compete in their respective conferences. Some of these conferences include the Big East, Big Sky, MAAC, Mountain West, and Peach Belt.[16]

National Association of Collegiate Esports

NACE was founded in July 2016 and is a nonprofit membership association driven by colleges/universities in the United States that have and are developing official varsity esport programs on campus. NACE's primary goal is to develop and grow collegiate-level esports and advocate for members to create varsity programs that give the opportunity of scholarships and dedication to a sport that may not be seen as traditional. Since it focuses on the logistical elements of the varsity program, NACE is game-title-agnostic, and supports collegiate programs in competing in any video game title they choose. As of 2019, NACE supported more than 130 member schools.[17]

Esports Collegiate Conference

A conference created on June 10th, 2020 by member institutions of the Mid-American Conference.[18]

List of colleges and universities with esports teams
Colleges and universities with esports teams
School Location
Albright College[19] Pennsylvania
Ashland University Ohio
Arcadia University Pennsylvania
Averett University Virginia
Becker College Massachusetts
Bellevue University Nebraska
Benedictine University at Mesa Arizona
Bemidji State University Minnesota
Boise State University Idaho
Bowling Green State University[20] Ohio
Brescia University Kentucky
Bryant & Stratton College Virginia
Campbellsville University Kentucky
Central Methodist University Missouri
Centralia College Washington
Cincinnati Christian University Ohio
Coker College South Carolina
College of St. Joseph Vermont
Columbia College Missouri
Concordia University (Texas) Texas
Culver-Stockton College Missouri
Daemen College New York
Defiance College Ohio
DeSales University Pennsylvania
Dickinson State University North Dakota
DigiPen Institute of Technology Washington
Eastern Michigan University Michigan
ECPI University Virginia
Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Arizona
Ferris State University Michigan
Full Sail University Florida
Fontbonne University Missouri
Florida Southern College Florida
Florida State University Florida
Georgia Southern University Georgia
Georgia State University Georgia
Grand View University Iowa
Harrisburg University Pennsylvania
Hawkeye Community College Iowa
Henderson State University Arkansas
Illinois College Illinois
Illinois Wesleyan University Illinois
Indiana Institute of Technology Indiana
Kansas Wesleyan University Kansas
Kent State University Ohio
King University Tennessee
Lackawanna College Pennsylvania
Lambton College Ontario
Lebanon Valley College Pennsylvania
Lees-McRae College North Carolina
Lourdes University Ohio
Marietta College Ohio
Maryville University Missouri
McPherson College Kansas
Menlo College California
Miami University Ohio
Midland University Nebraska
Missouri Baptist University Missouri
Monroe College[21] New York
Morningside College Iowa
Niagara University New York
Northern Virginia Community College Virginia
Northwest Christian University Oregon
Northwood University Michigan
Oakland University Michigan
Oregon Institute of Technology Oregon
Pratt Community College Kansas
Principia College Illinois
Robert Morris University Illinois Illinois
Robert Morris University Pennsylvania
Schreiner University Texas
St. Louis College of Pharmacy Missouri
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology South Dakota
Southern Virginia University Virginia[22]
Southwestern College Kansas
Southwest Baptist University Missouri
St. Ambrose University Iowa
St. Clair College Ontario
St. John's University (New York City) New York
St. Thomas Aquinas College New York
St. Thomas University Miami Gardens, Florida
Stephens College Missouri
Stevenson University Maryland
SUNY Canton New York
Tennessee Technological University Tennessee
United States Air Force Academy Colorado
University of Texas Dallas Texas
Texas Wesleyan University Texas
Tiffin University Ohio
Trine University Indiana
University at Buffalo New York
University of Akron Ohio
University of Arizona Arizona
University of California-Berkeley California
University of California-Irvine California
University of Central Oklahoma Oklahoma
University of Jamestown North Dakota
University of Missouri Missouri
University of New Haven Connecticut
University of North Texas Texas
University of Pikeville Kentucky
University of Providence Montana
University of Oregon Oregon
University of Oklahoma Oklahoma
University of Southern California California
University of South Carolina-Sumter South Carolina
University of Utah Utah
West Virginia Wesleyan College West Virginia
Western Kentucky University Kentucky
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gollark: ```Manufactured in week 18 of year 2012Specified cycle count over device lifetime: 10000Accumulated start-stop cycles: 1967Specified load-unload count over device lifetime: 300000Accumulated load-unload cycles: 1967Elements in grown defect list: 4```
gollark: (my server's HDD, I checked with `smartctl`)
gollark: "Manufactured in week 18 of year 2012"

References
  1. "List of varsity esports programs spans North America". ESPN.com. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  2. "CSL Season 1". liquipedia.net. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  3. "About CSL". cstarleague.com. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  4. ""LinkedIn - Tyler Rosen". linkedin.com. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  5. "Tespa Admissions, FAQ". tespa.org. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  6. "What is Tespa? - Tespa". tespa.org. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  7. ""2017-2017 Year in Review - Tespa". tespa.org. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  8. "EGF.GG".
  9. "Collegiate Starleague Summer 2011". gamepedia.com. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  10. "Announcing the North American Collegiate Championship". na.lolesports.com. Archived from the original on 2016-01-07. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  11. "uLoL Campus Series - North America's League of Legends Collegiate League". dotesports.com. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  12. "UCI announced LoL scholarship". polygon.com. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  13. "Collegiate Starleague partners with Riot to run uLoL Campus Series Tournament". esportsobserver.com. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  14. "Riot Games announces new partnership, format for College Season". ESPN.com. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  15. "Riot Games establishes governing body for college, high school programs". ESPN.com. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
  16. "2020 College League of Legends Partner Conferences".
  17. "Home - Collegiate Esports Governing Body". NAC Esports. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  18. "Dozen MAC schools create separate conference for esports". RoyalOakTribune.com. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  19. "eSports to be added as Albright varsity sport". Albright College. October 1, 2018. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
  20. "Esports". Bowling Green State University. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  21. "Monroe College Announces Addition of Esports to Mustangs Athletic Program". Monroe College Athletics. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
  22. https://esports.svu.edu/
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