Here’s our latest weekly Newsflash roundup, where we cover a host of brief esports and gaming news in a quick and bitesize nature for you to digest.
NLC format changes announced for Summer 2021 Season
The League of Legends NLC, featuring teams from the UK and Northern Europe, will be returning for the Summer 2021 Season.
Roster locks will be made on May 24th and the season will last eight weeks to July 20th.
Once again there will be two divisions, but this time there will be cross-division play. In phase one, teams will play other teams in their division, in phase two teams will play against those in the other division, and in phase three teams will play those in their own division again. This means each team will play 16 matches in the regular season – six more than the Spring 2021 Season.
Then there’s the playoffs and the grand final, which will take place on August 8th 2021.
Elsewhere, in the lower-tier UKLC, the Summer 2021 Season roster lock will take place on May 26th. The season will begin on June 6th, with playoffs starting on July 25th and the grand finals on July 26th. Then the relegation series will take place between August 30th and September 6th.
There’s been some team news too. Viperio have moved up to the UKLC after Resolve acquired Barrage and gave up some of their league slots, and London Esports academy and NOX Esports have joined the UKEL.
There’s more info on the UKLC website and NLC website.
Streamer Poopernoodle joins Endpoint
British streamer Poopernoodle has joined UK esports organisation Endpoint.
She has almost 50,000 followers on Twitch and returns to more regular streaming after finishing her degree.
Chihester and Winchester universities to study gaming’s affect on mental health
The University of Chichester, which runs an esports course, hast teamed up with the University of Winchester to look at how gaming affects mental health.
The project aims to improve the wellbeing of players. There’s more info on Chichester.co.uk.
Elsewhere, the University of Chichester recently partnered with Twitch to boost esports degree students’ broadcast skills.
Scottish college Valorant champions announced
North East Scotland College (NESCol) have won the 2021 College Development Network Esports Scottish Cup.
The Valorant tournament saw 12 teams from colleges across Scotland go head-to-head.
The finals took place last weekend (May 1st to 2nd) and were streamed via the British Esports Twitch channel.
There’s more info on the NESCol website.
Fnatic signs Rhobalas as content creator, has also been linked with EU Masters champion Adam
London-based esports organisation Fnatic have brought French streamer and Challenger mid-laner Rhobalas as a League of Legends content creator.
Fnatic have also been linked with French top-laner Adam, who recently won EU Masters with Karmine Corp.
Firm with UK parent company open gaming and training centre in Poland
Tournament and training camp provider BaseStack has revealed plans to make its esports debut by opening its first gaming centre and residential training camp in Poland in June.
The residential training camps are designed to cater to an international audience, with English the universal language.
BaseStack’s parent company is UK-based, while head of BaseStack, Rachel Butterworth, is based in London, as is digital media director Janie Stamford.
New UK org Semper Fortis set to sign partnerships with top footballers
Semper Fortis, the new UK-based esports organisation which announced plans to float last month, has been linked with two top footballers.
The org is said to be ‘in advanced talks’ to sign Premier League footballers Harry Maguire and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, reports the Evening Standard.
Other big UK orgs with footballer ambassadors include Guild Esports (David Beckham) and Excel Esports (Dele Alli).
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
