Riot Games has confirmed The Esports Advocate’s previous reporting that Spain-based company GGTech will be its collegiate esports partner over the next three years, serving as “a one-stop-shop” for College League of Legends, College Valorant, the college club program, and other programs such as the the CLoL Fall Warmup tournament.
The company will serve as the official provider of our North American collegiate program for the next three years, beginning in the 2023-24 school year, working closely in conjunction with the Riot Scholastic Association of America (RSAA)— who will play an integral role in the “operations, strategy, and direction of the college ecosystem.”
“Collegiate esports is evolving. Varsity programs continue to expand the resources they provide their students, student-run club teams remain a force to be reckoned with, and more and more students join up to compete in collegiate esports. After a successful first season of collegiate VALORANT, we are bringing all of Riot’s collegiate esports in North America into one spot with the help of GGTech, an eight-year partner of Riot who is already supporting collegiate esports in EMEA and Latin America.”
Riot added that GGTech will also work with the RSAA to secure partnerships with other organizations and sponsors on behalf of the organization. As for what will change with the current college esports ecosystem, Riot says that not much will be different going forward.
“The College LoL and College VALORANT Season in North America will remain largely the same as previous years, including dates, formats, a live final event for both games, equal scholarship prizes as previous seasons, and the same overall goals of each competition. As usual, we will announce quality-of-life updates for both games as we approach the fall, and will specifically look to improve upon the first year’s format for College VALORANT. The club program will continue to offer swag drops for special events like club activations, esports watch parties, and tournament prize support.”
Riot also said that it will not make changes to community guidelines for League of Legends or Valorant scholastic community competitions:
“We are not making changes to the scholastic community competition guidelines for either League of Legends or VALORANT as a result of this partnership. We still want to see third parties engaging in the scholastic space where we can’t directly support, and we encourage interested organizations to contact us for introductions to GGTech in the hopes of future collaboration. GGTech will have more resources to spend on third party relationships, and we’re excited to support future partnerships where they make sense for our goals.”
Finally, Riot noted that GGTech will be hiring to support collegiate Valorant and League of Legends in North America. Those interested can email jobs@ggtech.us.