VALORANT has made a strong appearance as the newest and most popular addition to collegiate esports, in which many prospective, current, and alumni students have taken interest in VALORANT at the collegiate level.
Beginning at the time of around 2009, esports at the collegiate level has been rapidly growing in both participation and viewership amongst universities and other school institutions across the nation, as well as across the globe. In the United States, various schools started forming esports clubs to play video games competitively. The National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) is the largest college-related esports organization with memberships of more than 170 collegiate organizations that focuses mainly on the development of esports programs at the collegiate level, in which the NACE advocates for top-tier gaming programs that include scholarships for its participants.
Such NACE colleges and universities provide students with opportunities to play esports at the collegiate level by hosting tournaments for titles such as League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League, and even VALORANT. You can look to see if your institution is supported by the NACE here: https://members.nacesports.org/af_memberdirectory.asp.
The first step you would have to take is to find out if your school is involved in esports, which is simply just a google search away. In most institutions, the most common games that are currently supported playing at the collegiate level are League of Legends, Rocket League, Rainbow 6 Siege, Overwatch. Since VALORANT has just been released a little over a year ago in June 2020, college esports programs may be slowly rolling in VALORANTas a game to provide tournaments, events, and possibly even a club for. Though being able to form a team may be easy, we must consider the colleges and institutions’ need for infrastructure, financial ability, and equity and inclusivity, in which they help aid the players with a gaming space, staff, and much more to accommodate the players and community.
Being able to fund for the addition of a new game in an esports program is essential to the functioning of any responsibilities and tasks within a program, in which what is required is an established creation of roles and budgets early on in the programs’ operations.In order for the equal distribution of resources and application capabilities to those of all backgrounds, the funding and resources must be present to provide that basic infrastructure, as well as for excess to be available.
Networking and researching are a good way to find people with similar interests as you. A good start to doing so would be to join your school’s discord server if they have one, and to look around in the gaming related channels. This is an easy task to do since all you would have to do is search up “[school name] discord server,” which are usually posted on Reddit or on school websites. Institutions tend to separate their gaming discord servers from their general school discord server, so you may have to ask around for a link to a gaming or VALORANT-specific discord server.
Once you’ve finally found a gaming community for your school, be sure to look out forapplications and tryouts for the VALORANT team, which usually opens up before the start of Fall quarter or after a playoff has concluded. Keep in mind that rosters can change, and teams are always open to accepting new players to recruit in order to find players of best fit.
Colleges join conferences that support the game of interest with tournaments, where the esports teams of different colleges and universities compete against each other. Some of the current conferences and associations that support VALORANT are Conference One (CF1), Collegiate VALORANT Conference (powered by AVGL), and the Collegiate Esports Association (CEA).
Since VALORANT is an extremely popular game, collegiate esports programs, associations, and conferences have been quick to include VALORANT in their program by hosting events, tournaments, workshops, and much more.Though the game has only been out for about a year, there have been multiple VALORANT leagues that go by a schedule, where their tournaments have previously concluded. An example is Conference One, in which colleges are split into divisions and compete in the Fall Split (2021) and Spring Split (2022).
Playoffs are usually divided into groups of equal rankings, in which in the Fall Split, Conference One has divided the regions as North American West and East, as well as “Radiant & Immortal” and “Diamond & Below” in round-robin gameplay. Such organization was done in order to differentiate the groups by their skill level and to sustain an equitable gaming experience. In the Finals, Rounds 1-3 as well as the Semifinals were done by playing best of 3’s, and the Finals were best of 5’s, where the Radiant & Immortal players were given a $7,000 prize pool, and the Diamond & Below players were given a $3,000 prize pool.
If becoming a Professional VALORANT Player is a title you would like to see by your name, collegiate tournaments are an amazing way to build up your “gaming resume.” You will be able to build such a gaming resume given that playing in tournaments at your college or university is considered to be an official tournament and scrim experience(s).
Whether you are currently a student or a prospective student at a college or university, don’t be afraid to be a part of their VALORANT club. If there isn’t one, you could be the difference. As long as there’s someone with a voice and someone with determination, building a club or creating a VALORANT team is doable—it just takes time. Managing and/or playing VALORANT at a college or university is beneficial experience and would definitely look good on your resume, whether it be working in the esports industry or becoming a professional player.
