Hi {{first_name | there}},
Season Ten of the Ireland Esports Collegiate Series is open for registration. Red Bull Ireland are back as Official Partner. And the Open Division is getting a LAN of its own — not just for the finalists this time.
Ten seasons sounds like a milestone, and we'd rather treat it as a deadline. The last three seasons have been spent building: a Premier Division, a published calendar, a real broadcast, a platform that works, an admin and production team deep enough to run every title on the same nights. Season Ten is the first year all of it is in place at once.
So this isn't an anniversary season. It's the season everything we've been building was being built for.
Open Division, this one's yours
We've run LANs before. Three finals at Dogpatch Labs — a real room, a real crowd, tickets on the door — and they taught us more about what a live event needs than anything we've ever done online. But they were finals. You had to win your way into the room.
That changes in Season Ten. We're committing to an Open Division Invitational LAN in the spring — on campus, in student gaming spaces rather than a venue rented for the weekend, and open to far more of you than a finals night ever could be.
Invitational, and deliberately not a winners' bracket. This isn't a reward for whoever topped their title. Places will be prioritised for players who compete across both semesters — so playing Winter and Spring is what puts you in the frame, not where you finish. Full criteria and venues are being confirmed now, and we'll announce them during the season.
And Open Division finals weeks now carry the live broadcast. December and April, cameras on you.
Getting in takes two minutes
You don't need an established team. You don't need a society with a committee and a budget. You don't need to have played competitively before, and you don't need to be any good.
Depending on the title, you might not need anybody else at all. Formula 1 and Teamfight Tactics are individual competitions — you enter on your own and that's the whole process. Rocket League is three players. Most of the rest are five. Find the title that fits what you've already got.
A lot of the teams now in Premier started in Open and simply kept showing up. Several of them had never played a competitive match before their first fixture.
Premier Division — come and take it off UCD
Premier is your institution against the rest of the island, broadcast all season. It launched last year with ten universities and 38 teams and did exactly what it was built to do — raised the ceiling without closing the door underneath it. UCD go into Season Ten as defending Premier Division Champions.
Because Premier teams represent their institution for a full season, entry runs through your esports or gaming society rather than an open form. Talk to your committee. No society, or not sure who's running it this year? Get in touch — that's a solvable problem, and far easier to solve now than in November.
What's different this year — and where it came from
Almost every change below came from something a student told us last season. The rep feedback in 25/26 was blunt and it was right, and it became the to-do list.
The entire calendar is published up front. Every date from October to the May finals is locked and public. No more finding out a fortnight beforehand.
Aligned milestones across every title. Title-specific brackets, but the same key dates — so the season feels like one season instead of nine games running at nine different speeds.
The finals weeks are separated. Open finishes 7–11 December, Premier 14–18 December. Nobody is juggling both.
WhatsApp joins the team. Discord stays for match coordination. The things you actually need to act on will reach you somewhere you'll see them.
One route for raising issues, and a bigger admin team. Someone available, rather than one person to chase.
Earlier start times where campuses can take them. Last season a match was still running while security closed the building. That shouldn't happen twice.
The ceiling moved this summer
Over the summer, players who came up through this series were named in Ireland's squad for the Esports Nations Cup — the first nation-against-nation event of its kind, with more than a hundred countries entered. It's since been pushed back to 2027, which doesn't change the part that matters: they got there from here.
We don't pick that team and we don't run it. But the road that got those players seen runs straight through a Tuesday night fixture in a college league. Worth knowing before you decide this is only a bit of craic on a weeknight. It can be both.
Red Bull are back
Red Bull Ireland return as Official Partner for Season Ten — behind the series, the broadcast and the players in it, after a first year together that finished on the Red Bull LIVE Stage at GamerFest.
There's also a route to a global final running alongside the season this term. Detail shortly — worth keeping an eye out for.
Want to run it rather than play it?
Not everyone reading this wants to compete. Some of you want to call games, run a title, or produce a broadcast — and Season Ten needs all three.
We're recruiting admins, casters, producers and social media specialists. Real named roles with real responsibility, training where you need it, and no requirement to have done any of it before. If you've ever watched one of our broadcasts and thought you'd do it differently, take this as the invitation.
Graduated? Even better. Alumni are exactly who we're looking for, and plenty of you have asked how to stay involved. This is how.
The whole season, locked
Winter Semester | Spring Semester | |
|---|---|---|
Registrations Open | Now | 21 December |
Start Date (8 Weeks) | w/c 12 October | w/c 8 February |
Open Division Finals | w/c 7 December | w/c 5 April |
Premier Division Finals | w/c 14 December | w/c 12 April |
Then the Open Division Invitational LAN in the spring, and the Premier Division Nationals to close the season in May. Fixtures run on set nights per title, so you'll know when you're playing before the season starts rather than a week into it.
Get a team together, or go on your own
You get three or four seasons at college if you're lucky. This is the tenth one and the best-built season we've ever put in front of you — a LAN for Open and Premier Divisions, cameras on both, every date locked and Red Bull Ireland behind it.
Be in it.
Ireland Esports Collegiate Series
An Ireland Esports Leagues competition
