Riot Games will be featuring uLoL and college rivalries in a big way this offseason with the uLoL Rivalries series. Five showmatches between classic college rivalries will be featured on Riot's streaming channels starting Nov. 4 at 3 p.m. PT.
Players will be able to vote for the top five teams to be featured out of a selection of twelve. The rivalries are:
Michigan vs. Ohio State
USC vs. UCLA
Cal vs. Stanford
Texas vs. Texas A&M
Florida vs. Florida State
Harvard vs. Yale
Virginia vs. Virginia Tech
Simon Fraser vs. University of British Columbia
BYU vs. Utah
Duke vs. North Carolina
Alabama vs. Auburn
Arizona vs. Arizona State
Riot Games' Michael Sherman told us the company sought to make a "cohesive list" of rivalries that highlighted schools with classic feuds and established uLoL presences.
"The University of Texas [for example] has a very diverse and large gaming community, and we wanted to kind of mix those two," said Sherman. "Making sure that we were building experience for these players, along with [featuring] some of these big rivalries."
The five selected match-ups will compete in showmatches, and Riot will host special viewing parties for the competing schools which would include special guests - possibly even pro players from the League of Legends Championship Series.
The uLoL Rivalries series, hosted in partnership with Yahoo! Esports, will look to shine a spotlight on the 400-plus uLoL clubs around the nation. Michael Sherman, associate esports manager for collegiate programs at Riot Games, said he's enjoyed seeing collegiate esports grow so much.
"I came from the community. I started out running college tournaments when I was in college," said Sherman. "I started out with 100 [teams] and by the time I went to Riot, I had launched an event with 500 teams. So being able to come to a place where I can double-down and grow on that is kind of a dream come true."
