The Pacific 12 Conference, auniversity athletic conference located on the west coast of theUnited States of America, has revealed their commitment to esportsthrough a decision from their yearly board end meeting. During themeeting, of which the official release can befound here, theuniversity presidents and chancellors approved theconference’s television network to move forward with esportsrelated programming for the upcoming school year.
PAC-12 Network, the televisionnetwork in question, is split between six regional sub-networksthat focus on different schools. The esports related programminghas yet to be decided, but will be revealed in the comingmonths.
Although there is no concreteplan, moving forward with esports is one of the PAC-12’spriorities as it sees the importance of such competitions throughthe student bodies across all of their member schools.
Larry Scott, the commissioner ofthe PAC-12, had this to say about their decision to add esports totheir future plans for th network. “eSports is a natural fitfor many of our universities located in the technology and mediahubs of the country, Pac-12 Networks’ commitment toinnovation as well as its natural tie to our universities andestablished media platform make it the perfect organization todevelop the framework for eSports intercollegiatecompetition.”
The PAC-12 consists of theUniversity of Arizona, Arizona State University, University ofCalifornia Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles,University of Colorado Boulder, University of Oregon, Oregon StateUniversity, USC, Stanford, University of Utah, University ofWashington, Washington State University. North American esports andthe west coast seem to go hand-in-hand in recent years, making thisone of the best conferences to get involved.
The statements might be vague,but it is clear that the PAC-12 see the value in esports.Collegiate esports have seen some improvement over the years, butit still has a long way to go. Hopefully the PAC-12 will be able toaccelerate that process.
What games do you think thePAC-12 Network are going to include? How do you feel about thePAC-12 coming in? Let us know in the comments below or tweetus @GAMURScom.
Patrick Cowley can be contactedthrough email at patrick@esports.guru or on Twitter, @PtrckCowley.
