The final stage of Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports in the UK and Ireland has officially kicked off, raising the stakes for competing teams as they venture towards the Grand Finals. Through a joint effort of NUEL and GGTech, the split will provide students with the opportunity to compete in top esports games like CS: GO, League of Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, VALORANT, Rocket League, Teamfight Tactics, and Clash Royale.
Shattering all previous records, over 800 teams from across the country have signed up for the spring split, representing a total of 104 universities. The tournament will feature teams representing some of the biggest universities in the UK and Ireland such as Warwick, Imperial College London, Durham, Loughborough, Cardiff University, University of Glasgow and Technological University Dublin.
The Grand Finals of Varsity – including CS:GO, League of Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, and VALORANT – will take place on the 12th, 13th, and 14th of April. Not only will the spring split crown this year’s Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports Champions, but it will also give students a chance to get a share of the competition prize pool, which this split will reach £24,105 and will include Amazon vouchers, winners’ merch, and paid-for trips to esports events.
Additionally, the leading teams of the spring tournaments of League of Legends, Rocket League, Teamfight Tactics, and Clash Royale will qualify for Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports Masters where they will get the chance to represent their country and their school against the top university teams from across Europe.
The Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports competition is made possible by the collaboration of outstanding partners, who have given their firm support to this League since its birth, such as Riot Games, and tech giant Intel. Twitch Student, another crucial partner for the competition, will also be providing their support this season, bringing the audience closer to the players and upscaling the competition towards new levels.
The Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports Community
A big priority for, Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports is to provide support for young gamers to build communities; to be able to compete in a friendly environment and develop their skills, all while bringing them closer to the burgeoning world of esports. In addition to supporting gaming communities at over 80 freshers fairs, Spring has seen the launch of new community tournament nights, workshops and incentives to support student-run charity events, and the ‘Big Name on Camera’ campaign aimed at supporting student creators.
As an example of the sort of growth in the community, Alex Gregory from Swansea University Esports society said: “There’s so much going on with the society at the moment, and we’re planning so much more. For example, for the movember movement, we held a charity stream that went on for 8 days with 14 different streamers taking part, with streams of 4 hours to whopping 24 hour streams, all going on one after the other. We managed to raise £224.85 for the charity organization with minimal advertising, and overall, we believe everyone involved enjoyed the experience and we’re hoping to do more of these sort of charity events in the near future!”
In what has already become a landmark event of Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports, this season continues with the Women and Non-Binary VALORANT and League of Legends tournaments, the first of their kind to be established in the UK, aimed at giving visibility and a positive environment for female and non-binary gamers. “They’ve been incredibly fun”, said Katie Waring, a player in the Women and Non-Binary VALORANT tournament, “they’ve led me to meet a lot of amazing people and I’ve made a few friends out of it that I talk to outside of the tourney. It’s very friendly and a nice change from the male dominated tournaments and I feel a lot more included in this one.”
The growing audience of Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports in Europe
Throughout the Winter split, there was a significant audience growth in the Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports across Europe, with more than 40,000 people viewing the finals online and a whopping 6 million viewers following the qualifying tournaments held in Italy, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Ireland through different broadcast channels (streaming, Twitch, and social media).