Event organiser and production company ESL has partnered with American sports channel Big Ten Network to launch the BTN League of Legends Season.

Streamed on Twitch, YouTube, and Caffeine, the collegiate event will see 14 Big Ten schools battle it out starting February 16th.

Craig Levine, Global Chief Strategy Officer at ESL commented on partnership: “We see collegiate esports playing a crucial role in both the player and fan ecosystems and this marks the second program on the ESL Collegiate platform. The ultimate goal of these collegiate partnerships is to expand awareness of esports on college campuses as well as establish a consistent structure for collegiate esports competitions, akin to traditional sports.”

The BTN season will be a part of Riot Games’ College League of Legends Season and will culminate in the BTN League of Legends Championship Tournament on March 28th-31st. The top team will be seeded into the League of Legends College Championship, with the runner-up being entered into a play-in tournament with the top two teams from Big East.

Erin Harvego, Vice President of Marketing at Big Ten Network added: “We are delighted to partner with ESL on the third season of the BTN League of Legends competitions. By partnering with industry esports leaders like ESL and Riot, BTN is able to provide the highest level of content, promotion and visibility for collegiate esports competition.”

The schools that will compete in the BTN League of Legends Season are as follows: University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University, and the University of Wisconsin.

At ESI New York – our upcoming business conference on April 23rd – we’ll be hosting a roundtable titled ‘The state of collegiate esports’. Considering the ever-growing status of colleges and universities getting involved in esports, this is the perfect opportunity to learn all about it. You can find more information here!

Esports Insider says: Collegiate esports is receiving a lot of attention and support as of late and this is simply more of that. ESL is obviously a big player in esports generally so it’s cool to see it work with the network to give students a chance to get some offline competitive experience.