Collegiate Gaming Community Comes Together for the UC Esports Holiday Invitational

2 months ago

After finals week had ended, over 200 college students joined in on the first-ever UC Esports Holiday Invitational. The 2020 UC Esports Holiday Invitational is a premiere multigame collegiate esports tournament that connected student-athletes and gaming communities across the nine universities in the UC system. Xfinity was the tournament’s title sponsor of the four-day event.

“As a longtime supporter of the gaming community, Xfinity is thrilled to partner with the University of California to hold this unprecedented virtual esports tournament at a time when unity and a sense of community are so needed for students,” said Mark Cruz, director of brand partnerships for Xfinity at Comcast. “Whether they’re streaming NASCAR, the Olympics or the NFL, or relying on a gamer-grade internet connection for esports, Xfinity brings fans closer to the passions they love by delivering the fastest speeds on the nation’s largest gig-speed network.”

Teams competed in Overwatch, League of Legends and Valorant for top prizes and to bring pride to their school. Those that won first place in each of the games were awarded $1,000 in prizing that was split between the teams and the cash prize will be deposited into the student’s bursar account.

Students got to hear from Jacob “Jake” Lyons and Andrew “ZP” Rush, who currently work together as Overwatch League casting partners and have great chemistry and industry recognition – making them a natural fit to serve as both panel and casting talent for the UC Esports Holiday Invitational.

To kick off the four-day tournament, Xfinity hosted a panel discussion featuring Jake, Andrew, Cathy Ge, UCLA Esports Director and Kathy Chiang, UCI Esports Director, for a conversation around the impact of the pandemic on esports at the professional collegiate levels in addition to how it will shape the future of the industry.

Jake and Andrew also casted and commentated on the Overwatch matches held on the last two days of the tournament.

Half of Xfinity’s sponsorship fee was donated to each of the participating UC gaming programs in addition to providing a competitive landscape for teams and individuals to showcase their hard work and talent.

The UC Esports Holiday Invitational streamed about 33 hours over the four days of the tournament, experience part of the tournament for yourself and find out who took the first-place home!

Powerful Winter Storm Creates Power Outages and Impacts Comcast Services

An “atmospheric river” winter storm has brought heavy rain, high winds, flash floods, avalanche warnings and extensive power outages to much of Northern California.

The storm has created impacts from the Sierra to Fresno, including the Bay Area and throughout numerous coastal communities. The system is expected to continue bringing heavy rain and wind to the area through Friday.

Numerous communities are experiencing power outages and thousands were told to evacuate in the Santa Cruz, California region.

Comcast services require commercial power to operate. Internet and video, as well as landline and even mobile phone services for homes and businesses, may stop functioning within hours after the commercial power is shut off.

Comcast understands this disruption to services can have a major impact on people’s lives and businesses, especially during the global pandemic.

The safety of our communities and employees is our utmost priority and Comcast takes special care during storms to ensure public safety. Once commercial power is restored, we will restore Comcast services that have been affected as quickly as possible in accordance with public safety and regulatory guidance.

Here are a few things you can do to stay informed:

Confirm your contact information at xfinity.com/myaccount—We will use this information to contact you if we expect a service disruption caused by a planned power outage. You can also use My Accountto check if your service has been restored.
Comcast Business customers can check their My Accountapp or the Comcast Business Status Center to get information and valuable updates.
Download your favorite shows and movies for offline viewing—With the Xfinity Stream app, you can watch shows and movies offline in case you lose power.
Download the Xfinity Connect App to receive Xfinity Voice calls via your mobile phone—Xfinity Voice customers can make and receive calls with their Xfinity phone number using their mobile phone.
Visit the Comcast California Blogwhere we will post information, updates and answers to commonly asked questions. On the blog, we’ve launched a special PSPS web page where you can get additional information.
Follow us on Twitter — our handle is @ComcastCA and we post valuable updates regularly.

Even if power is off, Comcast’s team never stops working for you. From our family to yours, we hope you remain safe.

Comcast and Olympian Simone Manuel are Helping Close the Digital Divide in Oakland

6 hours ago

Today Comcast announced plans to equip 20 Oakland community centers and parks and recreation facilities with free WiFi for the next three years. As part of its Lift Zones initiative, the company will provide robust WiFi coverage in these safe spaces, to help ensure Oakalnd students can remain online during the school year and continue to participate in distance learning. The announcement was […]