Over 6,000 student gamers and 200+ college recruiters registered for the event – making it the largest scholastic event in the industry connecting high school gamers to collegiate programs.
BoomTV and Intel launched Intel Inspires, a first-of-its-kind esports program, to establish an esports talent pipeline focusing on college recruitment and scholarships. The inaugural event hosted more than 6,000 high school gamers to become the largest scholastic event in the industry. Brands including MSI, the official PC partner of the event, and CDW-G sponsored the event, along with professional team organizations Complexity Gaming and G2 Esports and several leading scholastic es-ports organizations.
The goal of Intel Inspires is to provide opportunities for youth gamers to improve their future and this has already been achieved far beyond our hopes. We have received thank you notes from students who would never be able to attend college without their success in Intel Inspires. Hopefully there will be dozens of first generation college students pursuing their passion for gaming, in part because of these events.
Victor Suski, founder of the AVGL and Director of Col-lege for BoomTV
The vision for the event was a long-time goal of Victor Suski, founder of the AVGL and Director of College for BoomTV, who had spent over 7 years running college esports events. He witnessed top student esports players being unable to access scholarships and recruitment opportunities, similar to what a ‘Combine’ provided for traditional sports athletes. Mimicking sports Combines, Intel Inspires provided Fortnite, Rocket League, and League of Legends players with the opportunity to showcase their skills in front of college recruiters. After three rounds of qualifiers, the top 100 players from each game were invited to participate in a ‘Virtual Combine’ to meet one-on-one with top collegiate esports recruiters and qualify for $250,000 in scholarships.
Our mission was to provide an all-inclusive opportunity for esports talent to achieve their dreams, whether that’s a college scholarship or a pro team contract. Intel has been a leader in Esports for over 15 years and continues to set the pace for gaming innovation with our technology. We know that, alongside BoomTV and leading industry partners, we can continue to elevate opportunities for esports talent.
Marcus Kennedy, General Manager of Gaming and Esports at Intel
Players, recruiters, and sponsors held over 450 meetings on the event’s meeting platform and over 6,000 student gamers and 200+ college recruiters have been registered for the event. In addition, BoomTV’s collaboration with TikTok helped drive the Intel Inspires livestream and video content, with the latter reaching 35MM views over one weekend. Alongside the Combine, up and coming content creators were able to prove their skills by playing with top influencers in the ‘Streamer Showdown’, a three-day event featuring renown influencers with an aggregate of 21MM+ Twitch followers, such as Arkham, NickEh, Shiphtur, Yassao, and Trick2g, who all also provided scholarships to students in their name. Intel Inspires will continue in 2021 with additional Virtual Combine recruitment events and scholarship funds.
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