The NCAA approved a temporary policy to allow college athletes in all three divisions to get paid for the use of their name, image, and likeness (NIL). The barebones idea is that the interim policy allows student-athletes to engage in NIL activities that are consistent with the law of the state where their school is located, with the extension of students who attend states with no NIL laws to also be able to engage in this activity without violating NCAA rules related to NIL. Will this lead to the NCAA putting interest into Esports?

NACE has announced a multi-company partnership with CSL Esports, Nerd Street (North America’s largest esports infrastructure company) and Mainline, the leading software company in collegiate esports, to establish NACE Starleague. The league will comprise more than 14,500 students from 600 colleges and universities.

We talk with Cloud9 coach, Emanuel "Hoaxer" Lovejoy about Halo Infinite and if there will be a resurgence in the Halo Esports scene, especially in college. What are the benefits that of Halo Multiplayer now that it's free-to-play?

The Gateway Legends Collegiate Invitational was our first LAN back since the pandemic and sponsored by the Centene Charitable Foundation. It featured sixteen teams, split into four categories. The prize was $10,000.

Coach Adam Antor from Aquinas College to talk about the LAN experience, how his team battled against the local ‘legends’ of CLoL, what new trends emerged from CLoL to the LAN, and what to expect for collegiate in the upcoming months.

eFuse has officially launched “Pipeline”, a ranking system of esports competitors who are college-eligible. Matthew Benson, CEO and Founder of eFuse, equated Pipeline to lists that rank high school athletes preparing to enter collegiate play, ie: the ESPN 100 identifies the top 100 HS basketball players annually.

Also, St. Clair College Opening Public Esports Facility

LG Business Solutions USA has renewed its partnership with collegiate multi-game esports tournament series Battle Academy. Battle Academy is run by UGC EDU, a division of Ultimate Gaming Championship

We're joined by Rebecca Dixon, co-founder of GameHERS, who just launched their first women’s collegiate division with support from Lenovo Esports, Stay Plugged In (SPIN), eFuse, Evil Geniuses’ Geniuses League, and others. Per GameHERS statement, they will provide a ‘safe, inclusive online community for women, non-binary and femme-identifying students who game and/or have a desire to work in the gaming industry.’ 

Level Next moving to the next massive esport of Overwatch, this time joined by Cheeze-It Grooves.

We get some CLoL insight with Jonathan " Hollywood" Song of Bethany University on how it felt to be in the semi-finals against Maryville, improvements from Northern Conference, what to expect next for CLoL and Bethany.

The inaugural Level Next Rocket League Spring Showcase Championship concluded this past weekend and Akron came out on top of the tournament. While the in-game competition didn’t differ much from typical CRL competitions, the presentation, production, and, most importantly, the bracketing were very different from CRL.