By Lexie Shezifi — Reporter
San Jose State Esports is collaborating with Loyola Marymount University and Academy of Arts University to co-host their first intercollegiate Valorant tournament, the Golden Coast Invitational.
The 64-team tournament brings together schools from across the U.S. and Canada, giving them a shot at taking home a $1750 prize pool.
Schools will play in the tournament throughout the semester, with four groups of 16 facing off in a round robin format. On Dec. 6, the top two schools from each group will battle for first place in a single elimination bracket. The teams that make it to grand finals will fight for their cut of the prize pool — with first place getting $1,000, second with $500 and third with $250.
The tournament is sponsored by Esports College and Career Pathways, but is being organized and run entirely by students.
“As an organization we’ve been trying to expand content and having this gives us experience to do more stuff like this in the future,” said Vice President of SJSU Esports, Edward Ham. This event is the first time SJSU Esports has hosted an intercollegiate tournament and it sees this as a stepping stone for more in the future.
All of the sponsorships, broadcasting and logistics have been done largely by students. Ham said that by having such a large scale tournament run by students, they can put the best interest of the schools and clubs first.
The tournament was initially supposed to be hosted by ArtU and LMU, until some SJSU Esports officers were brought in as tournament admins. After seeing what they brought to the table in terms of organization, SJSU became a co-host for the tournament.
“Overall it’s been a good experience working with these schools,” Ham said. “LMU brings sponsorship knowledge and legal experience to the table, and ArtU is very experienced with broadcasting so they had a lot to offer in terms of that. For us, it’s been largely beneficial working with these schools.”
SJSU’s Valorant A-Team was undefeated in the tournament until Oregon State University gave them their first loss last week.
You can watch the teams play on the ArtU Twitch channel and follow match updates on the Golden Coast Invitational’s Twitter.
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