Highlights
- UEC Season 3 National Finals run September 21 to 23 at Offbeat CCU in Kolkata, with participants competing in Valorant, BGMI, FC 26, and VR Tennis.
- The championship carries a total prize pool of INR 15 lakh distributed across all four competitive games for the top eight teams in each game.
- Entry is free for the public, with experience zones, creator meet-and-greets, sim racing, cosplay, and more.
College esports in India has always had the talent. What it has lacked is the structure to find it, develop it, and give it a stage with proper visibility. NoScope Gaming has spent the last three years building that structure from the ground up, and the University Esports Championship (UEC) is the result of its efforts.
UEC Season 3 National Finals take place from September 21 to 23 at Offbeat CCU in Kolkata, with 26 universities converging for three days of competition. We spoke to Abhinandan Mukherjee, head of NoScope Gaming, to understand what the championship is trying to build and why college-level structured esports matters for India's broader competitive gaming ecosystem.
What Is the University Esports Championship?
The premise of UEC draws inspiration from collegiate sporting events across the world. Every university competing must field a team made entirely of students from that institution. No mixing players from different colleges, no open rosters where the best available talent gets recruited regardless of affiliation.
Mukherjee stated, “Students in India consider UEC to be the highest level of collegiate esports in India. So if they secure top spots at UEC, they basically get to represent or be the best college teams in India. It is proven to be one of the highest levels, if not the highest level, of college-year structured esports in India."
That structural choice makes things interesting for the participating colleges. When VIT Vellore faces MIT-World Peace University Pune, both sides have a genuine institutional stake in the outcome. The players are representing the place where they live and study, which produces a different quality of intensity than open competitions.
UEC is also the only championship in India that runs all four gaming platforms, which include PC, mobile, console, and VR, under one roof. Season 3 features Valorant, Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), VR Tennis and EA FC 2026.
How UEC Built Its Pipeline
The championship started with a pilot at VIT Manohar and an observation by NoScope’s team that most colleges in India had no structured esports programme at all. NoScope's approach was to go in and build the infrastructure first: campus ambassadors who scout talent, tryout processes, training from professional esports athletes, and a pathway from finding players to fielding a competitive team.
Mukherjee shared his early journey with the UEC, stating, "Professors used to tell me that you are asking these guys to play games; they should be studying. By 2024 and 2025, the same professors were contacting NoScope to ask for university slots in UEC.”
NoScope Gaming
Season 3 had 15-plus LAN qualifiers held across India from January to July 2026, followed by an online Last Chance Qualifier in July. The 26 finalists include VIT Vellore returning as defending champions, IIT Kharagpur, Techno India University, Calcutta University, and other educational institutions from across the country.
Winners at the event have a chance to get scouted by some of the leading esports organizations in India. Mukherjee points to players from the UEC ecosystem going on to compete for organisations including Revenant XSpark (RNTX) and Orangutan. Mukherjee also pointed out his event’s international successes, stating, “UEC produced India's first VR esports world champion through the World Tennis Esports Championship 2025 in Las Vegas, and sent a player from the 2023 inaugural season to the Esports World Cup 2026 in Paris for FC 26.”
UEC Season 3 Overview
The National Finals run September 21 to 23 at Offbeat CCU in Kolkata, a venue owned by the Techno India Group that operates with support from the Government of Bengal and NITI Aayog. Three LAN arenas will run simultaneously, one each for Valorant, BGMI, and FC 26. VR Tennis runs alongside.
Doors open at 9 AM IST daily, with play concluding at 8 PM. All Valorant and BGMI matches will be livestreamed on the NoScope Gaming India YouTube channel. The total prize pool for Season 3 is INR 15 lakhs distributed across all four verticals, with the top 8 ranked teams in each vertical earning a share.
