For transparency: Esports News UK editor Dom Sacco used to work full-time for British Esports between September 2016 and February 2021, and currently does some freelance work for them, producing their weekly email newsletter
The British Esports Association has added Valorant to its Student Champs for school and college students in the UK.
Riot’s shooter joins existing games in the Student Champs: League of Legends, Overwatch and Rocket League.
British Esports said the inclusion of Valorant this year ‘stems from popular demand, and will provide an alternate first-person-shooter (FPS) title for students to compete in’.
The Student Champs are for students aged 12 and above, however for Valorant the tournament will be for those aged 16 and above, due to the 16+ PEGI age rating for the game.
Valorant will run on a separate schedule to the main Student Champs, consisting of distinctive individual seasons. These seasons will have a group stage, playoffs and will culminate with one team coming out on top.
Across all of the other titles, the teams will compete across Winter and Spring splits to try and secure themselves a space at the Student Champs live grand finals event, which will once again be taking place at the Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies (part of Nottingham Trent University) on June 18th and 19th 2022.
Confetti X, the university’s new esports complex, will be where the action takes place across the weekend to conclude another season of the British Esports Student Champs.
The 2020/21 seasons’ events were summed up in an event aftermovie, which can be found here.
On top of adding a new title to the Student Champs, a new website has launched as a hub for students and teachers involved in the tournament, with students and teachers able to register and make payments, including via a new tournament credits payment system.
The tournament side of the website was produced in conjunction with epic.LAN Business Services.
The British Esports Student Champs costs £25 to enter per school/college for the year, plus £5 per team entered each season, plus VAT.
British Esports Student Champs 2021/22 registrations are now open.
More UK Valorant content:
- Women in Games announces Valorant Community Cup featuring UK orgs
- T1 signs UK Valorant streamer Karagii
- Valorant and League of Legends added to Season 4 of the Scottish Esports League
- UK-based game matchmaking service Teams.gg expands into Valorant
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.
