The University of California, Berkeley and Riot Games have announced a partnership to launch the inaugural League of Legends (LoL) Intramural Esports League this fall and to provide scholarships to student-athletes on the UC Berkeley LoL team.
UC Berkeley is one of Pac-12’s leading proponents of esports, having offered the competitions through intramural programs for multiple years. Besides the University of Utah, who has a full-fledged varsity program, UC Berkeley is the only other school in the conference offering scholarships at this time.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Riot Games, as our esports program has been gaining incredible momentum,” said Stephen Sutton, interim vice chancellor for student affairs at UC Berkeley in a press release. “Just last week, we announced we’re creating UC Berkeley’s first esports community center. We’re pleased to add another dimension through a new intramural league and scholarships. We’re looking forward to advancing the potential of our students and of collegiate esports with this partnership between Cal and an industry giant like Riot Games.”
The esports community center will provide support for “educational and professional development programs for esports athletes.”
In addition to the development program, UC Berkeley is also starting a Women in Gaming initiative.
“We want to empower the current and next generations of female gamers,” said Tiffy Tsay, one of the student co-leaders in a press release. “We’d like to encourage more female gamers to join the University’s esports community — and know they have support among like-minded students.”
SportTechie Takeaway
Collegiate esports are receiving more support by the day. Over 50 schools have varsity programs and many more have active clubs like UC Berkeley. Riot has put a focus on developing the collegiate esports landscape. In the past year Riot has changed the structure of their collegiate series, introduced a broadcast deal with the Big Ten Network and partnered with the Peach Belt Conference to offer Division II League of Legends.
The Women in Gaming initiative is important because esports, like sports and technology on the whole, is still male-dominated. This endeavor, along with the efforts of Marilou McFarlane and her organization, Women In Sports Tech (WiST), are steps in the right direction.