The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) has announced its esports association, NJCAA Esports.
The NJCAA is the governing association of community college, state college, and junior college athletics in the United States.
Dr. Christopher Parker, President and CEO of NJCAA discussed the development: “The growth trend of the esports industry has given NJCAA member colleges a remarkable opportunity to create and manage programs, increase enrollment and retention and make a greater positive impact in their communities. The NJCAA, with our partners Legacy Esports and EsportsU, is excited to embark on this historic endeavor to benefit two-year higher education.”
NJCAA Esports will develop online, LAN, and national events for students to compete in. It has partnered with Chicago-based Legacy Esports to operate and schedule the events and New York-based Collegiate Sports Management Group (CSMG) to handle the commercial rights.
Andrew Barnett, CEO of Legacy Esports commented: “Legacy is excited to partner with the NJCAA and EsportsU to deliver competitive, structured, and meaningful competitions to two-year colleges across the country. Legacy will power league structure and operational services for all regular season and championship events on our state-of-the-art competition platform.”
Competitions from NJCAA Esports will begin this autumn with “the structure design created based on membership.”
Esports Insider says: We’re not surprised to see a development such as this happen, collegiate esports is gaining steam and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down. We’ll reserve judgement on this development until we’ve seen some execution.