Blizzard is now accepting applicants for its 2017 Heroes of the Dorm esports competition as the annual live-streamed event moves from its former home at ESPN to the greener pastures of Facebook Live.
Full-time students at any four-year college or university in the United States and Canada are invited to apply and competition is expected to reach a fevered pitch during the lead up to bracketed play in March.
Heroes of the Dorm is a Blizzard-organized competition centering around the publisher’s free-to-play MOBA Heroes of the Storm. The annual event invites competitors from universities across North America for a chance to win thousands of dollars in college tuition and scholarships.
The competition debuted in 2015 with a live-streamed championship series on ESPN2 and ESPN3. After returning to ESPN the following year for its second annual Heroes of the Dorm event, Blizzard announced that its 2017 competition will be broadcast exclusively via the Facebook Live platform. As of Wednesday, Blizzard has not announced whether simulcast streams will be available via YouTube and Twitch, as is common practice for other major esports competitions.
Group stage competitions and playoffs for Heroes of the Dorm will kick off on February 15 and Facebook will host streams of “select matches” through March 8. Bracketed play among the top 64 teams will begin on March 18 and the last four surviving teams will advance to the Heroic Four finals on April 8.
In addition to offering a $500,000 scholarship pool for competitors, Blizzard has cash prizes in store for viewers who can correctly predict tournament winners through the upcoming Bracket Challenge and Pick’em Challenge online contests. Registration for Heroes of the Dorm 2017 wraps up on February 11.
