ABSTRACT
Students in US colleges and universities have organised esports teams since at least the early 2000s. Important milestones in the development include the establishment of collegiate Starleague in 2009 with 24 schools in the United States and 2 in Canada. By the mid-2010s, collegiate varsity programs emerged. In 2014, for example, Robert Morris University in Chicago (now Roosevelt University) announced scholarships for its League of Legends team as part of its athletic program. Founded in 2016, the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) emerged as a possible governing body. Despite its contested status, NACE reported over 170 member institutions with over 5,000 student-athletes in 2020. In this chapter, I will trace the organisational development of intercollegiate esports. The discussion of governance illustrates historical parallels between college football and college esports with regard to converging but also competing interests of various stakeholders (e.g. students, faculty, administrators, athletic departments, and governing bodies).
