A team of UK-based students from Staffordshire University will compete to become the European champion of University Esports Masters (UE Masters) next month.
The players, part of the Korean Pop Superstars (KPS) team, have qualified for the European Grand Final of the UE Masters tournament.
They will be looking to beat the all-Ukrainian team from the National University of Physical Education and Sport of Ukraine (NUPESU) in Valorant on July 14th 2024. This will be broadcast on the UE Masters Twitch channel.
The UE Masters is the largest esports competition between universities globally. It’s the season finale of University Esports, a global project involving more than 100,000 students from all over the world.
Staffs Uni’s team consists of UK players dashh and Zion, as well as Ireland’s Diarmuid, Lithuanian player nukez and Malaysian player zen.
First place will take €2,500, while the runners-up will receive €1,500.
Another UK university, Nottingham Trent University, finished in third place in the Valorant tournament, receiving €1,000, while TU Dublin finished 5th-6th.
And in Rocket League, Roehampton Esports Black finished third.
The news comes after UK and Ireland universities reached the European University Esports Masters 2024 playoffs stage.
Staffordshire University was the first to offer an esports degree in the UK, and last month Staffs Uni opened its new £2m+ esports facilities in Stoke-on-Trent.
UE Masters, supported by Riot Games, is the conclusion of the University Esports season, a global program with a presence in 26 countries on four continents and involving more than 100,000 students from 2,000 universities.
Per a University Esports press release: “The main objectives of University Esports are to create a sense of community among players from all over Europe, to give them the opportunity to compete in high quality international tournaments and to provide avenues for young people to develop a career within the esports world, as well as to find a place to learn and enhance their skills.”
In the UK and Ireland, University Esports, a project organized by NUEL (a GGTech Entertainment company), has celebrated its 13th season. The winners of its Winter Split, such as Staffordshire University, have been the national representatives in the current edition of UE Masters.
Last year, the University Esports Masters 2023 finals took place in Nottingham, with German and Turkish teams on top.
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.
