Nearly Five Million Fans Watched via Live Twitch Broadcasts in the First-of-its-Kind Rocket League Event Open to All College Students
PLANO, Texas – The four-week Level Next Rocket League Spring Showcase competition concluded June 4-6, with 24 college esports teams representing their schools in the National Championships. A total of 276 Rocket League teams participated in the Spring Showcase,
The finale weekend garnered more than three million live views on Level Next’s and Rocket League’s official Twitch channels, with concurrent viewership peaking at nearly 82,000. Game streams included red zone-style whip around coverage and featured top Rocket League shoutcasters, player bios, stories, and highlights, along with RLCS Champion NRG Head Coach Sizz, Fireburner, and First Touch hosts Tbates and RollDizz. University of Akron won the Championship, defeating Northwood University in an overtime walk-off goal in game seven.
Nearly five million esports and Rocket League fans watched the nine days of live broadcasts on Twitch. Overall, Level Next content reached more than 30 million people across social media platforms. Level Next also held its second $50,000 Twitter competition for college esports programs to earn points for tweeting and receiving engagements on tweets that used #LevelNextShowcase. The Twitter competition reached more than 19 million people and garnered over 376,000 engagements. The winning program was Northwood University, which will earmark its $15,000 first place winnings to rebuild its facility after much of it was destroyed during the historic 500-year Michigan flood in May 2020.
“Without question, the Level Next Rocket League Spring Showcase was a tremendous success and well received by players and esports fans like,” said Learfield IMG College EVP/Managing Director – Media and Partnerships Group Rick Barakat. “Psyonix has been great to work with, providing us access to such a popular, endemic game title like Rocket League for our Level Next events and broadcasts, and we appreciate the sponsorship support this spring by Unilever and JBL Quantum Gaming Headsets.”
The universities represented in the National Championships last weekend were: Akron, Colorado State, CSU Fullerton, CSULB, Delaware, JMU, LSU, Michigan Tech, Minnesota, Missouri, Missouri S&T, Northeastern, Northwood, North Texas, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, Pitt, Stockton, Texas Tech, UT-Dallas, UCF, UNC Charlotte and USF.
Learfield IMG College launched Level Next in October 2020 with publisher Electronic Arts (EA). It is the first league to be supported by official school branding and athletics marketing assets. Last month, Learfield IMG College announced the addition of “Rocket League” as a featured game title for its esports events and league through a direct agreement with Psyonix.
Free and open to all college students attending a four-year accredited university, Level Next Rocket League Spring Showcase provided a unique avenue for cornerstone sponsor Unilever to leverage its United for America program and help create awareness for the pervasive issue of food insecurity on U.S. college campuses. Unilever, through this sponsorship, will donate one million meals to Feeding America in support of this awareness.
Learfield IMG College is a leading media and technology services company in intercollegiate athletics. The company unlocks the value of college sports for brands and fans through an omnichannel platform with innovative content and commerce solutions for fan engagement.