By Maggie Borland
The competitive Valorant scene has been flourishing since it’s release. Coming from the same company that made the biggest esport in the world, League of Legends, hope has always been high for the future of this new FPS game. However, one area that has been on unsure footing- the future of collegiate Valorant. It’s easy to say, “Well Valorant is quickly becoming the biggest esport in the world, why would the future of scholastic success be unsure?”
There are a couple reasons. The first, and most prominent reason is that Universities usually want a collegiate league to be supported by the founding company (in this case, Riot). All three varsity games at Boise State have this support. Rocket League has CRL (Collegiate Rocket League), League of Legends has CLoL (College League of Legends), and Overwatch has Collegiate Overwatch as well as Tespa. Whereas the University supported games all have different third party leagues and tournaments to compete in, but are minimally supported by the game itself.
In addition, with Valorant coming out in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, this process was probably delayed. In an article published in March 2021, Riot said they have been waiting to gauge student and community interest before creating a league. They emphasized that they want the growth of this esport to be natural. However, it was then said they “plan to evaluate potential scholastic Valorant competitive support heading into the 2021-22 academic year.”
What does this mean? To sum it up, there are no guarantees but the future is looking hopeful for collegiate Valorant. With a mass pandemic wrapping up, if Riot doesn’t officially support scholastic Valorant this coming year, it would seem pretty certain they would the year after. This just means people have more time to buckle up and grind out the game as much as they can before Universities everywhere start looking for players to fill their varsity programs.