The $1.5 billion esports industry, which is largely populated by white men, has few Black faces. That has begun to change over the past month with the formation of a historically Black college and university (HBCU) league on the horizon.
Organizers will announce this week a partnership with the Collegiate StarLeague (CSL), with some 2,000 schools and 100,000 players, to start a 16-team HBCU esports league to begin competition in early 2021. Two invitational tournaments slated for September (to celebrate the start of the new academic year) and October (a “homecoming” event) will introduce the new league.
Relatively speaking, HBCUs are late to the college esports game, with only a handful such as Morehouse and Tennessee State present in a landscape of thousands of predominantly white institutions that play for millions of dollars in awards and scholarships and billions in revenues.
Yet in partnering with the CSL, one of the largest college competition associations in the country, HBCUs are in position to catch up and capitalize fast with the endgame being a massive expansion of educational and vocational learning at the schools.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by David Steele over at The Undefeated
