European university Rocket League platform University Rocketeers has announced a partnership with developer Psyonix for its 2022 collegiate esports season.
The European University Rocketeers’ Championship (EURC) 2022 season will feature 40 of Europe’s top university Rocket League teams competing for a €10,000 (~£8,330) prize pool. In addition, EURC will also include six qualification spots for the CRL World Championship set to be held in June.
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EURC is a championship featuring the top European universities from national leagues. The series is partnered with domestic national leagues such as Uniliga in Germany, Meta in Belgium and Netherlands, and NSE in the UK.
The four top-placed teams in EURC 2022, along with two teams from a Last Chance qualifier, will receive invites to the CRL World Championship — the first international collegiate Rocket League event.
These six teams will join invitees from North America’s collegiate season for the first CRL World Championship to be held in June. As previously announced, the world championship has replaced North America’s CRL National Championship.
The €10,000 EURC 2022 prize pool will be shared amongst the top-12 placed teams. This is in addition to the CRL World Championship prize pool, which is yet to be announced.
The details come after Psyonix revealed earlier in January that it was expanding its Collegiate Rocket League (CRL) league from North America to Europe for the first time.
EURC 2022 will be broadcast twice per week on University Rocketeers’ Twitch channel. The event is also expected to be broadcast in a variety of languages through UniRocketeers’ national partners across Europe.
Moreover, the Finals Weekend and CRL World Championships Last Chance Qualifier will be broadcast by UniRocketeers on the official Rocket League Twitch channel.
James Coleman-Evans, Head of Operations at University Rocketeers, told Esports Insider that the European university Rocket League community has been waiting five years for developer support for the scene. “For the university Rocket League community, this is fantastic,” Coleman-Evans said.
“It’s a testament to all the hard work of everyone involved that we managed to get to this point. A lot of people that put their time and effort in have graduated and I’d like to thank all of them because without them, we wouldn’t have got this far.”
Esports Insider says: Partnering with Psyonix is a big step up for the European collegiate Rocket League scene. Although the prize pool is still a notch below North America’s collegiate prizing, it’s still a vast increase over previous years.