College Poker is over, the age of Collegiate eSports is here!

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If you went to college in the 2000’s – especially if you studied any form of mathematics, computer science, engineering, etc. – there’s a good chance you were sucked into that generation’s mass online poker boom. It was a popular way to help pay for college – or an excuse to drop out, if it went really well. In the current decade, student’s are trading in cards for video game controllers, competing for Collegiate eSports Scholarships.

eSports is the perfect medium for today’s generation, known universally as Millennials. After all, this is a group of young adults who grew up playing PC and console video games, earning a stereotype of living in their parent’s basement with nothing but a TV and Xbox to keep them company.

Sure, we all played some form of video games growing up, whether it was on a classic Atari, Nintendo, Sega or even the earlier PlayStation models. But Millennials are privy to a new evolution in gaming, known as MMO, or Mass Multiplayer Online games.

If there was a teenager in your house anytime in the last 10 years or so, you’ve surely heard them talk about games like Call of Duty, League of Legends, DotA 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. These are all famous MMOs, wherein players compete in team-vs-team battles to destroy their opponents in 3D worlds that often mimic highly realistic battlefields (oh yeah, there’s another popular MMO title, Battlefield).

Parents who once nagged their kids to “put down the damn video game controller and get outside!”, may be changing their tune now days. Especially if one of their offspring happens to perform well in this weekend’s Collegiate eSports competition, worth over $100,000 in scholarships.

Collegiate eSports Scholarships – Grand Finals

I’m referring to the CSL North American Collegiate Grand Finals that’s scheduled to run from Friday, May 12, through Sunday, May 14. The eSports scholarship competition will take place at the Scotiabank Theatre in downtown Toronto, Ontario.

Throughout the 2016-17 season, WorldGaming’s CSL (Collegiate StarLeague) welcomed more than 1,500 eSports teams from over 900 universities across Canada and the United States to their events, all competing for a spot in this year’s Grand Final.

This weekend’s Collegiate eSports competition will span four of the most popular MMO game titles, including:

• Counter Strike: Global Offensive

• DotA 2

• Starcraft II

• League of Legends (Invitational)

The team from the University of British Columbia (UBC) is hoping to do extremely well this weekend (after last year’s big win), as they’ve qualified for a spot in three of the four tournaments.

Wim Stocks, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager for WorldGaming, is exceptionally proud of this year’s turnout, culminating into the biggest collegiate eSports event of 2017.

“This is the largest collegiate eSports event of the year and we’re thrilled to be hosting this year’s event in Toronto,” said Mr. Stock.

“Canada overall has a huge appetite for live esports events and to have the best collegiate esports teams here vying for the international championships for their schools, as well as scholarships for themselves, is an amazing honour,” he said.

Founded in 2009, the CSL is the world’s largest collegiate eSports gaming league. The organization supports teams from more than 900 schools, with over 30,000 registered players to date. The CSL has paid in excess of $300,000 in collegiate eSports scholarships since its inception.