The inaugural season of the Historically Black College and University Esports League concluded on April 28, bringing in millions of viewers and tens of thousands of concurrent, according to organizer Cxmmunity.
By the final week of its NBA 2k21 season, the HBCU esports season as a whole brought in more than 14 million viewers with 32,000 peak concurrent viewers averaging to about 15,000 concurrent viewers per stream. Meanwhile, Cxmmunity is a nonprofit organization committed to increasing participation in minority esports through STEAM development, according to its website. The over 18 school league showcased tournaments across Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Fortnite and NBA 2K21.
HBCU Esports is truly a success and we're ready to kill it again.
@twitch @verizon #5GBuiltRight
Tag someone who needs to tune into the streams! https://t.co/0D1BBxEhR7 pic.twitter.com/YDY03NeH0Y
— Cxmmunity (@cxmmunity) June 2, 2021
The league will return for a second season in August. According to Cxmmunity, the organization helped build two esports labs with HBCU’s that participated. It will also have provided more than $750,000 in scholarships and grants to its HBCU esports league participants.
How does HBCU compare to other collegiate tournament
Arguably the biggest esports event in the collegiate community is the League of Legends College Championship. The tournament is the culmination of the various regional League of Legends leagues and pits them together in a tournament format. The individual leagues are not tracked by Esports Charts, but the 2021 College Championship, hosted by Riot Games is. This year, the tournament garnered just over 12,000 peak viewers. Moreover, it averaged 2,700 average viewers.
As for other leagues, many college leagues supported by companies like PlayVS also do not show up on Esports Charts. However, through their own Twitch channel analytics from Twitch Tracker, the PlayVS account averages around 106 viewers. The highest number of concurrent viewers on the channel is just over 18,000. The channel does host multiple esports and tournaments across different genres and education levels. PlayVS hosts tournaments for middle school, high school and college participants.
According to Cxmmunity, the HCBU esports league had 22 students participate across its inaugural season. The 2021 College Championship tournament saw 32 teams with 160 total players participating. The league will continue in August with more announcement on the way, according to Cxmmunity.
Published: Jun 3, 2021 08:17 pm