Setting The Tone
It is important to highlight the numerous things we are involved in not just for OU, but to also provide perspective to those not on the inside to those on the outside. When drawing parallels for many of our universities it is natural to have comparisons to the “Division 1” and “Division 1 Power” classifications and nicknames. No, the NCAA athletics classification of a Division 1 school does NOT apply in the world of collegiate esports. However, much of it does translate in the context of politics, bureaucracy, licensing processes, and how slow or fast it can be at different intervals. Defining this is important to set for our inclusion involvement in the Power Esports Conference, or PEC, which Syracuse University announced on August 16, 2024.
The PEC signifies an opportunity to leverage the canonical nameplates and brands of D1/D1 Power athletics classified universities to create an exhibitory use case opportunity which, if done correctly, will help push the topics further within the walls of many of the peer institutions who are still lethargic to the elevation and support of gaming culture and esports development opportunities on their campuses. The PEC is designed to decentralized having no main website or hub, but instead rely on the 8 inaugural institutions to produce, promote, and document how it unfolds.
The league is set to start the week of the 23rd of September, 2024 and the entire schedule has been published and referenced in the graphic next to this text. OU intends to provide production, news, and marketing coverage in tandem with our seven(7) other peers across the PEC.
The Unexpected Year of D1 Specific Opportunities
This is the first year we have been invited to multiple D1 (Athletics Definition) university events. We are only in September and we have 2 leagues and 2 invitationals with the criteria of D1 classification and 2 of which also introduce the “Power” distinction on top of it. Our philosophy with team involvements is that they have autonomy in choosing their league and tournament affiliations and attendances based on their own fundraising, time availability, and desire.
Our leadership purely presents the opportunity and then the highest form of leadership for each development has the final say. This is also how we have always decided on what teams we were going to create and endorse for elevation as well. Student originator and champion, develop policy, execute good decorum, done. That is why you will see traditional titles like Overwatch, League of Legends, and Rocket League in our lineup right next to Splatoon, Apex Legends, and Mario Kart.
This year NECC added “Project 1” a D1 (Athletics Definition) league for League of Legends, Valorant, Overwatch, and Smash. All 4 OU teams committed to it dropping NECC non D1 leagues. Several of our titles around the more popular titles have converted already into 50:50 or more than 50% bias towards D1 (Athletics Definition) leagues for the 2024-2025 school year. We thank you all for your continued support!
OU Esports All In!
We ended the 2023-2024 school year with over 18 titles in development, granted the intention and want was there, but not all 18+ executed for one reason or another. This year we enter with 15 developments locked in and at the time of this article all but one(1) have locked in their league affiliations. Last year NECC became the first league we paid for showcasing how much involvement you could actually get without paying entry or registration fees. However, with things elevating and more maturation in the space the need to elevate our involvements has also come. Last year we paid for NECC, HALO, and Call of Duty leagues all of which are part of the NECC structure with additional fees on top.
Coupled with the very grassroots but amazingly entertaining Collegiate Cephalopod Association (Splatoon), Collegiate Karting League (Mario Kart), the highly produced Collegiate iRacing, the passionate Collegiate Fighting Game Community (SF6/TEK8/GGStrive) and the well organized Collegiate R6 structures and not only do we have a large amount of teams formally representing The University of Oklahoma with full licensing we have grown quite fond of many of the leagues we are involved in. Now all leagues have their struggles but it is easy to weight quality when issues arise and the intent is transparent, communicated, and executed.
The Whole Picture
Most of our leagues are about to get started or have just started and huge shoutout to our trio of iRacing athletes who have now taken two 1st placements and one 3rd placement our of three(3) races in the season so far and at the time of this article. Stay tuned to our socials to keep tabs on our performance, production blasts, and ways to support our teams.
Please reference the chart below to learn about where are teams are involved and if you click the league names it will take you the best site for each to get more information on them.
| National Leagues | Developer Leagues | Special Leagues | Grassroot Leagues | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| National Esports Collegiate Conference (NECC) | North American Collegiate Esports (NACE) | PlayFly | Overwatch Collegiate Homecoming (OWHC) | Collegiate League of Legends (CLoL) | Collegiate Valorant (CVAL) | Power Esports Conference (PEC) | NECC Project 1 (P1) | Octane Collegiate | Collegiate Fighting Game Community (CFGC) | Southern Esports League (SEL) | Collegiate Karting League | Collegiate Cephalopod Association (CCA) | Collegiate iRacing League (CiL) | Collegiate R6 (CR6) | |
| Apex Legends | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||||
| Call of Duty | |||||||||||||||
| Chess | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||||
| Counterstrike | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||||
| Fighting Games | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||||
| Halo | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||||
| League of Legends | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | |||||||||||||
| Mario Kart | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||||
| Overwatch | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||
| Rainbow Six | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | |||||||||||||
| Rocket League | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||
| Super Smash Bros. | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | |||||||||||||
| Splatoon | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||||
| Sports (iRacing) | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | |||||||||||||
| Valorant | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | Spring/Fall | ||||||||||||
Supporting OU Teams
This Fall and for the first time we launched our fundraising portals for each team. At the time of this article only four(4) of the 15 teams pages are fully up with all 15 being done before September ends. Take a look at them here and consider supporting our corner of the Sooner Nation.
