Blizzard to support college eSports groups

The eSports Association has announced that it is partnering with Blizzard in attempt at helping support and grow homespun eSports groups based at colleges and universities.

"As part of the partnership, Blizzard will back student groups in the TeSPA network by guaranteeing event funding, unique in-game rewards, and unrivaled promotion opportunities to active TeSPA chapters," the TeSPA press release reads. "This backing will help chapters strengthen their communities by providing vital resources needed to host local gaming competitions and viewing events."

As it says, the groups must be associated with TeSPA to get the benefits, which comes with a couple requirements: the groups can't discriminate unilaterally against certain games or types of games, and the people in the groups have to pay a $10 annual membership fee.

So what sort of benefits are we talking about here? Well, the partnership with Blizzard is meant to help facilitate TeSPA's Membership Milestone Program, which gives added bonuses the more folks each group has registered and paying. groups will need at least 25 members before much of anything happens, and it escalates from there. Some of the tiers include in-game items for Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, so that's what Blizzard gets out of it.

It's all very corporate, but I'm sure that works for some folks.