NECC Announces Esports Titles For Spring 2021

Story courtesy of NECCathletics.com

MANSFIELD, Mass. - Following an extremely successful fall season, the NECC has announced it's plans for esports the upcoming spring semester. Once again, the conference will sponsor five titles and have a wide variety of divisions in each.

"We continue to be blown away by all the support we've received," said NECC Commissioner Jacob VanRyn. "The feedback from our efforts in the fall was overwhelmingly positive and our team has been working extremely hard to prepare for the spring. We're really excited to offer these competitive opportunities, especially during these difficult times."

Regular season play will begin the week of February 8th, with preseason placement tournaments beginning January 26th. The regular season will end in mid-April with single-elimination postseason tournaments in each of it's divisions to follow. The NECC will crown a champion in each division of each title it sponsors.

As was the case during the fall, the NECC's league play will be broken down by day of the week with the conference offering one game each night of the week. The spring schedule is as follows:

Monday - Rainbow Six
Tuesday - Rocket League
Wednesday - Valorant
Thursday - Overwatch
Friday - Hearthstone

The NECC sponsored Overwatch, Rocket League, and Valorant during the fall and will be bringing back each of the popular titles this spring. Additionally, Hearthstone and Rainbow Six have been added to the conference's spring lineup.

"We try to be diverse with our game offerings," said NECC Director of Esports Caleb Glube. "We asked our schools what games they wanted to sponsor and then worked with the game developers to be able to offer each of these five games. I think it's going to be an awesome semester and we're excited to get things underway."

Spring semester regular season play will officially get underway on Monday, February 8th, and once again, the NECC will be streaming a number of it's matches each night; Monday through Friday.

The conference currently streams on a wide variety of platforms, including Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as in conjunction with ESTV, the NECC's linear tv partner. The partnership with ESTV allows for the NECC's esports games to be found on the following OTT platforms and local channels: The Roku Channel, Amazon FireTV, Samsung TV Plus (channel 1357), TikiLIVE (channel 10), SimulTV, Dish Sling TV, Vizio Free Watch, Select TV, and Charter Spectrum Cable in certain local markets.

"We continue to be really proud of our streaming efforts," said VanRyn. "We had more than two million people watch NECC play in some form during the fall semester, and our community really enjoyed our streams and our casters. We hope it's something our member institutions and their fans continue to enjoy and we hope it helps them continue to grow and develop their programs."

The NECC will officially release it's full list of participating schools for the spring semester and the teams that will be competing later this semester as it finalizes rosters and schedules.

ABOUT NECC ESPORTS
The NECC announced its intention to sponsor esports in the fall of 2019. Recognizing the growing marketplace, the conference is committed to sponsoring esports in a manner that is similar to any of its other traditional sports. The NECC began play in the fall of 2020 and is currently sponsoring both regular season competition and championships in a wide variety of titles. With more than 50 colleges and universities currently competing, the NECC is proud to be a positive home for the collegiate gaming community.