Esports powerhouse League of Legends will be returning to college campuses next year, bigger than ever.
Now that college classes are back in session the Riot Scholastic Association of America has announced the continuation of the College League of Legends with a new 2020 season. The association presides over official collegiate competitions of League of Legends (LoL) which have been running since 2014 and is, of course, one of the most popular college esports games.
Image Via nexus.leagueoflegends.com
Last year’s College League of Legends was the biggest to date with 354 schools fielding teams. Missouri’s Maryville University ended the tournament in victory winning out over Ontario, Canada’s Western University in the tournament finals. Over 250 schools offered official support to their LoL teams of some kind, providing coaching and campus facilities or even player scholarships in some cases. Throughout the season more than $4.5 million in scholarships were dispersed to college league players. The final championship tournament was also popular among spectators with 41,307 people tuning in.
Building on the success of last year’s competition the Riot Scholastic Association has plans to expand in 2020. The championship tournament will now involve thirty-two teams up twenty-four from the eight that met in 2019. Team rosters will be capped at ten instead of six allowing teams more flexibility and giving players backup in case of illness or emergency. The way that official scholarships from Riot will be distributed will also change for the 2020 season. Previous rewards were given based on regional conference success and will now be tied to performance in the final championship.
Registration for the 2020 College League of Legends will take place over the next month, November 2019. League play will run January to March followed by playoffs which will run until April. Official dates for the final 2020 championship have yet to be announced.
Stephen Krusel, known as Sven Kroosl to some, has played video and tabletop games since 1987 and has written about the gaming industry since 2008. He has yet to be convinced that Final Fantasy Tactics is not the pinnacle of gaming.
