*Edit: NECC CEO Caleb Glube notes post-publication that FaceIt forces the NECC to set a default times for CS2. If they had a choice, game times would be set based on availability, in line with the rest of the NECC titles.
#4 Carnegie Mellon did not return to the NECC for the Spring 2026 season despite placing third in the Fall 2025 season. The reason? Returning for another semester is just too expensive for the student-run organization.
For the NECC, it costs a team $800 to join for one title for a year and $1500 to enter teams in all their titles. For PCL, it’s $625 per semester or $1000 for the year. This seems like a steep cost considering the prizepool of just $2000 for the NECC and $3750 for PCL.
“It’s honestly difficult to justify paying so much for a league, considering how small our org is,” says Carnegie Mellon CS2 captain Jacob “cobalt” Elkins.
Carnegie Mellon, despite being the #4 team in the country, does not have a university supported esports program and lacks the facilities, jerseys and funding other programs have. Instead of the NECC or the PCL, Carnegie Mellon has turned to the Longhorn League, a league run by the Counter-Strike esports club at the University of Texas – Austin.
“The fees were pretty steep and it felt like a slap on the face for us,” says Ricardo “Zel” Trinh, President of Texas CS2 and a co-founder of the Longhorn League.
In response to PCL increasing registration fees, Zel and fellow Texas alum Cole “cheezepantz” Shelton founded the Longhorn League as a cheaper alternative. They charge just $40 per team for their higher division and nothing for their lower division. However, this also translates to a smaller prize pool at just $840 with the entirety of the entry fee being put into the prizepool.
Even with the Longhorn League, #8 Texas main team plays in both their own Longhorn League as well as NECC. However as a club, the team paid the $800 out of pocket before being reimbursed by Longhorn Gaming, a club backed by the university that receives school funding.
With ten of the top twenty of teams in collegiate CS2 being at the club or student-run level, this has led to the declining popularity of CS2 in these larger leagues and higher popularity in cheaper smaller leagues.
On the other hand, NECC and PCL pricing works a lot better for larger school-supported esports programs. For Director of Esports at Radford University Doug Benedict, the costs are “justified.” Radford has up to five different teams across titles competing in PCL during peak participation.
“Right now, it has to be about the ‘bang for your buck,’” Benedict says. “The more competition and participation an organization can provide, the better.”
While he is open to other smaller game-specific competitions and leagues, he fears that there is an over-saturation in the market with more tournaments being organized than teams to play in them. With already limited money in the collegiate esports industry, this puts programs like Radford in a tough situation on how to allocate resources.
These grassroots leagues like the Longhorn League do have space in the scene though. Especially among schools that aren’t on the East coast or in the U.S: specifically, Canadian schools and West coast schools.
While there are many Canadian schools that can afford to pay for NECC and PCL, many Canadian student-run programs are left to fend for themselves. Patryk “Rex0” Surowiak, the Chief Marketing Officer for the Canadian Collegiate League (CCL) and a CS2 player for Cumberland University, explains that small programs either have to pay the money or build alternatives or play in amateur circuits outside the collegiate ecosystem. For him, the cost doesn’t necessarily justify the experience.
“It’s hard to justify putting $100 per person into joining a league that you might barely get to enjoy if you’re not a top twenty team,” he says.
For West coast schools, East coast focused playing times in the NECC and the PCL has led to them preferring these other smaller leagues. The University of British Columbia (UBC), one of the biggest schools on the West coast, has begun to prioritize smaller leagues such as Regent League and CCL over NECC.
“We can’t make default times that are 4 p.m. PST (7 p.m. EST),” says UBC CS2 captain Filip “Feedalee” Mitevski.“We are at the mercy of other teams’ flexibility to reschedule with us.”
While Feedalee notes that the competition is higher in the NECC, this lack of flexibility and impractical default start times for West coast schools has been a major deterrent to the team’s motivation to prioritize NECC play. He notes that some of his players are in co-ops or work studies that don’t end until 4- 5 p.m. PST.
“They come here knowing they have the appreciation of one from their own region to provide a solid league in their region that’s more fair to their circumstances,” says Regent league founder and namesake David “RegentXD” Rodriguez.
He’s also heard that the main concern among teams is cost. However, he finds that the East coast based scheduling is a much larger issue.
Director of esports and CEO at the NECC Caleb Glube says their league fees are reevaluated every year taking analytics and future planning into consideration.
“The NECC is set up so a club doesn’t have to be the best program to still compete,” Glube says. “Ultimately not every player is going to be the best, and our model is set up for that. Work their way through the system and build a better team through quality competition.”
In his view, club esports will slowly transform into a way for students to stay engaged in the esports community and retain students at their respective institutions, and not necessarily to build national-level competitive teams.
While the PCL and the NECC will likely remain the standard of competition in the CS2 scene due to their size and LAN championship opportunities, their ability to cater to every level of competition is strained. The unique nature of esports means that competitive teams can emerge at any level of institutional support. As a result, highly competitive teams that happen to be at schools without institutional support means that the top-end leagues are missing out on top teams due to the barrier of entry.
There are many potential solutions that could help ease the financial burden of playing in leagues while also maintaining the competitive spirit.
“NECC and PCL could implement a case-by-case scholarship program in order to allow for teams from smaller orgs or schools to compete without worrying about the cost,” suggests Texas A&M CS captain Alex “serfirah” Greene.
Other potential solutions range from open qualifiers for club teams to earn a spot in the league, investing in the collegiate industry as a whole or the establishment of a player committee to speak to these leagues on behalf of players.
Currently, the NECC offers over $30,000 in scholarships this year and a total of over $350,000 since their inception by way of competition prizing. They also provide resources and staff to help students at the student-run level pitch the importance of esports investment to their institution.
PCL did not respond with a comment prior to time of publication.
