By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Monday, January 31, 2022 – 4:02 pm
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Collegiate Sports Management Group (CSMG), an integrated sports and entertainment media company focused on esports and traditional sports in the new creator economy, is launching ESPORTSU, its esports brand aimed at building community, content, and events across the scholastic esports environment. The company says ESPORTSU will enhance the property rights of more than 3,000 academic institutions (high schools to two- and four-year colleges) to support content development, revenue opportunities, and exposure through regional and national events.
Collegiate Sports Management Group has launched ESportsU to try and be a catalyst for growth.
The launch of ESPORTSU includes the debut of its 24/7 Twitch channel, where the best collegiate content, including daily matches across all game titles from ESPORTSU’s conference partners, collegiate esports talk shows, student-produced programming, community events, charity streams, international collegiate content, live and virtual events, collegiate awards show, and educational panels, will be curated. The Twitch channel will also debut 6 hours of daily premium collegiate esports programming starting on February 1, in partnership with top collegiate esports conferences, including the ECAC, NECC, NJCAAE, and ECC.
The ESPORTSU brand will differentiate through media rights, name,image and likeness (NIL) revenue share models focused on the commercialization of esports assets through content creation and monetization, data aggregation, events and tournaments, and community building. The brand is being led by recently-hired Angela Bernhard Thomas, a decorated veteran in the entertainment and esports industry.
“The collegiate esports landscape is evolving and maturing rapidly, and our goal with ESPORTSU is not to observe collegiate esports maturing but to be the catalyst for it,” says Bernhard Thomas, EVP of ESPORTSU. “We’re building the framework serving the long-term success of collegiate esports through a spirit of collaboration and alliances.”
Additionally, ESPORTSU hosted two online collegiate esports tournaments for Valorant and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. The Midwest Invitational was held on January 29 and the Southeast Invitational on January 30. The winning teams will seed into the Collegiate Esports National Competition (CENC) in May. CENC hosted by ESPORTSU will take place on May 6-8, 2022, bringing together the best collegiate esports teams for the first time in Atlanta, GA. The all-inclusive collegiate esports event will gather collegiate esports athletes from across the United States to battle in multiple game titles for the chance to be crowned a national winner.
For the latest updates on ESPORTSU content, tournaments, and events, please follow the brand on Twitch and Twitter.
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