Calling all college gamers: Collegiate StarLeague registration is open

Forget college football. It's time for the Collegiate StarLeague, which just opened registration for the 2016-2017 season.

Gamers can enter college-level tournaments in StarCraft 2, League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Vainglory.

Interested North American college players have the whole month of September to register for CSL and create or join a team. Each game has at least two divisions, except for StarCraft 2 and Vainglory. That means your school can be represented by more than one team in the other three games. Most games have a registration fee.

Competing teams and players have the opportunity to win cash and scholarship prizes. Prize pools range from $8,000 in StarCraft 2 to $50,000 in CS:GO and Dota 2.

Play starts the second week of October, when teams will play in round robins until the beginning of March. Playoffs are scheduled to run from March 18 to April 8. Some games will be broadcast live throughout the season.

Because this is a college-level tournament, there will be an extended break from the end of November to mid-January for final exams and holidays.

Overwatch, Hearthstone and Madden tournaments are also being advertised for the upcoming season, but CSL released a statement Wednesday saying Hearthstone and Overwatch tournaments have been canceled in compliance with Blizzard's requests. Blizzard has run the college-level Heroes of the Storm tournament "Heroes of the Dorm" in previous years, so they may plan on running similar tournaments for Overwatch and Hearthstone.

All three games are still present on the sign-up form, but Madden was not mentioned in the news release about the season. CSL did not respond to Mashable's question about the status of Madden this season.

Eligibility

CSL lists a number of eligibility rules for both players and teams who want to compete this season.

Players need to be enrolled at a university with a valid email address from that university, and teams need to be registered to accredited institutions with a physical address. The school must offer at least a two-year degree program.

For players at schools with populations under 5,000, they can request to join a nearby, affiliated university's team.

There are some exceptions, which will be determined on a case-by-case basis.