Collegiate StarLeague (CSL), a division of WorldGaming, has inked a deal with Campus Insiders to cover its college eSports leagues and tournaments in the same way the site covers NCAA football and basketball. CSL has over 1,000 teams from 700 campuses across North America competing in League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), Vainglory and Starcraft II.

Collegiate StarLeague CEO, Duran Parsi, told [a]listdaily that collegiate eSports is a burgeoning subset of the eSports industry. “There’s a lot of maturation that is needed; we’ve seen collegiate teams go from unorganized groups of five friends to being fully fledged athletic teams, complete with full scholarships, to incredibly monolithic student organizations such as Triton Gaming at UCSD or UBC eSports,” Parsi said. “That’s been the coolest thing for me to see.”

Beginning January 16, CSL content will be featured across the Campus Insiders network, which reaches over 100 million college sports fans through various streaming applications and connected devices including Sling TV, Verizon’s go90, Xbox One, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, Facebook and Twitter. Brooks Boyer, CEO of Silver Chalice, owner of Campus Insiders, 120 Sports and the ACC Digital Network, told [a]listdaily that eSports is a natural fit for its always-growing portfolio of high-quality collegiate sports content.

“We’re excited to provide a cohesive space for all of the games, leagues and players in the collegiate eSports space to tell their stories to their fans,” Boyer said. “We have been closely engaged in the rise in popularity of eSports, both professional and collegiate, over the past year and want to ensure the Campus Insiders’ fan base has access to the best content of this kind, when and where they want it.”

The content partnership will also allow Campus Insiders and CSL to collaborate on and create new and exciting live events within collegiate eSports. It will create a unified portal for collegiate eSports content coverage, making it easier for fans to follow their favorite teams as they compete regionally and nationally in these events.

“As the popularity around eSports continues to grow at a rapid scale both at the professional and collegiate levels, our network (Campus Insiders) strives to meet the needs of our audience to ensure that they have the best content possible built around all sports, whether they be conventional ‘stick and ball’ or of the eSports variety,” Boyer said. “Our partnership with CSL affords us the opportunity to keep a ‘close ear’ to the collegiate eSports community and has brought to light the lack of a ‘one-stop shop’ for all things collegiate eSports. As a result, we have responded to this need.”

Since 2009, CSL has awarded over $300,000 in scholarship money to student gamers from around the world. It has over 20,000 registered players across 600 registered schools.

Parsi said CSL is currently the only collegiate organization that provides regular content. “We produce interviews, features, recaps and really focus on the awesome stories,” Parsi said. “Campus Insiders is giving us at outlet for those stories—they’re giving us the resources to do more. One of the ways you’ll probably see this happen is the addition of a lot more video content produced in collaboration with Campus Insiders.”

Boyer said collegiate eSports opens up Campus Insiders to a whole new audience of previously untapped sports fans. “We already have a strong audience within the younger demographic, and this new relationship with CSL strengthens it by increasing our expertise in another area that they (our fans) are interested and engaged in, in a natural and credible way,” Boyer said.

This is part of a growing synergy across traditional college sports and eSports. The Pac 10 has officially added eSports to its collegiate competition. Parsi believes more conferences will get involved in eSports in the near future. “My hope is that the conferences take a measured and authentic approach to getting involved in eSports and don’t simply try to impose traditional sports methods on top of it,” said Parsi. “Gaming is significantly different.”

This being a new industry, Parsi believes there are still steps that need to be taken to ensure continued growth.

“Blizzard cutting other organizations like ours out of hosting leagues for its game is a disservice to the community,” Parsi said. “Its Overwatch League for example, was restricted to one team per school—meaning only a handful of Overwatch players on a given campus were able to compete. The thousands of other players, who could have played in a league like CSL, were left with nothing to do. That isn’t helpful for anyone, so I wish Blizzard would be more friendly to third party organizers who are trying to grow the space together.”

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