Watch 'LoL' Live On Big Ten Network This Year As Popular eSports Game Goes To College

The Big Ten Conference might be best known for college sports like football and basketball, but it’ll be broadcasting a new sport this month.

The Big Ten Network will partner with Riot Games to host a League Of Legends championship, according to ESPN. Starting Jan. 27, school clubs from the conference will compete in the game throughout the season and the championship finals will be on March 27. In-season games will be available to stream via watchlol.esports.com or the Big Ten’s BTN2Go online service.

As ESPN notes, players don’t have travel prior to the finals and could likely stay on campus. Players also must be full-time students and will receive $5,000 in scholarship money that must be used for academic costs. The winners of the Big Ten’s championship will move onto the League of Legends College Championship later in March.

Participating schools in the championship series are Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, Rutgers, Purdue, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Illinois and Maryland.

The Big Ten is one of several athletic conferences who’ve made moves to capitalize on the international appeal of eSports. Within the past few years, eSports has seen massive growth from a niche interest to a mass market field as the sport could potentially reach revenues of $1.9 billion by 2018.

Last year, the Pac-12 Conference announced that its members — who include schools such as Arizona State, Oregon and Stanford — would start to compete in conference games. Before launching its partnership for League of Legends, the Big Ten also held an exhibition match for the game at PAX East last year between Michigan State and Ohio State. Outside of the major athletic conferences, smaller schools have also dipped into the market by offering athletic scholarships for eSports players.