What is ACEL?

The American Collegiate Esports League (ACEL) is a student-formed, non-profit organization comprised of colleges and universities located throughout the United States. ACEL has seized opportunities to network with organizations and companies in the gaming industry. These relationships act symbiotically as we help them with tournaments and competitions and they help us with our outreach. In ACEL, we have observed how college esports are organized and after much thought and research have crafted a new way to host esports leagues. Instead of playing a random college somewhere in the nation, we took inspiration from how traditional sports are run and adopted a conference system. Through a conference based system, rivalries are made and maintained and narratives are able to be built. ACEL now provides colleges with the opportunity to compete against schools near their geographical location through the use of conferences. With a regular season played online and conference grand final events, it provides esports a true home in the college scene.

Our Story

It all started when West Virginia University's gaming clubs came together and decided to take college esports to the next level. We set out with the initial goal of creating a singular East coast gaming conference where colleges would compete in season play against school that are close to them. Similar to the ACC athletic conference but for esports. We wanted to form a true eastern competitive esports scene. The conference was structured with seasonal weekly play culminating in grand finals. WVU immediately started working together with many different colleges around West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, and the surrounding areas to create the Eastern Esports Conference (EEC). While recruiting eastern colleges to join the conference, the EEC began to gain the interest of many other colleges outside of the region. This sparked the creation of American Collegiate Esports League(ACEL). ACEL is the overarching governing body for the conferences with the goal of facilitating all esports at the college level. We are proud to say we are well on our way to achieving this goal. What began as a group of guys who were passionate about videogames has evolved into something truly special and unique.

Meet the Admins

ACEL's Core Crew

IMG_1322 copy.JPG — James Bittner:

Marketing Director

David Bittner

Creative Director of Innovations and Technology

Meet the Team

As a non-profit, all of ACEL's inter-workings are done by volunteer college students who want to help in the collegiate esports revolution. Here are just a few of the many people who make this organization possible.