Version 1.0 · July 23, 2026
The operating rules for every Black Cat Esports competition. The published game rules control title-specific settings; dated Black Cat notices control emergency changes.
Program applications run August 3–28, 2026. Participation is free for the inaugural season. Initial fall rosters lock September 11; competitions beginning later lock four weeks before their regular season. Material changes are versioned and announced.
Black Cat Esports provides accessible, transparent competition beginning with colleges in the United States and Canada. Programs must designate a verified institutional administrator, program director, adviser, or coach and maintain accurate contacts.
Players attest each season that they are current students of the represented institution and meet the published policy. An authorized coach or director separately verifies that the submitted roster contains only eligible students. Phase one does not collect transcripts or student IDs.
Adults must link Discord before becoming competition-ready. An under-18 participant may join only as a player and must have an assigned verified adult coach or program director. Staff authority requires stronger authentication.
Schools register first, then submit teams, rosters, captains, game accounts, and availability. Multiple teams per game are permitted using Varsity, JV, Academy, A, B, or an approved public name. Fall rosters lock September 11, 2026; later competitions lock four weeks before their regular season. An emergency substitute must already be an eligible student at the school and requires staff approval before play.
Official competition is Monday–Friday, normally at 5 PM PT. Schools submit operating constraints, shared-resource conflicts, holidays, and one spring-break week before generation. The league provides a school-specific bye rather than a league-wide spring blackout.
Teams should attempt documented coordination through official tools, preserve the original match time until approval, and submit conflicts before the published deadline. Late requests require staff approval. Emergency postponements must be reported promptly with the minimum necessary evidence.
Teams check in, confirm an eligible lineup, verify lobby/server/map settings, complete any pick/ban process, record substitutions and pauses, submit the score and required evidence, and confirm or dispute the opponent submission.
Lateness, no-show, incomplete-match, platform outage, and server-failure thresholds are title-configurable. Do not fabricate a result. Contact match support, preserve timestamps and screenshots, and follow staff direction. Overrides require a written reason and audit entry.
Only confirmed or staff-finalized results update official standings. Each title publishes its scoring and ordered tiebreakers. Manual adjustments are identified and auditable; private eligibility or disciplinary information is never displayed publicly.
Conference championships generally span two or three weeks and qualify teams into league playoffs. Seeding, wild cards, protected seeds, reseeding, geographic separation, and third-place matches are configured and published per title.
Respectful, inclusive conduct and honest play are required. Harassment, discrimination, threats, cheating, account sharing, smurfing, exploitation, betting, match fixing, retaliation, and knowingly false reporting are prohibited.
File through the official support workflow with match ID, issue, requested remedy, timestamps, and original evidence. Restricted staff review cases privately. Appeals identify an alleged rule, process, or material factual error; disagreement alone is insufficient.
Broadcasts must follow title rules, approved observer access, stream delay, participant privacy, publisher requirements, and sponsor restrictions. Co-stream and media permissions are not assumed.
Accommodation requests are handled privately and should be submitted early. Reports involving harassment, threats, youth safety, or staff misconduct receive restricted access and anti-retaliation protections.
Material changes are versioned, dated, announced, and applied prospectively where practical. The Commissioner may issue temporary emergency directions for safety, platform outages, publisher action, or force majeure, with an audit record and follow-up notice.
The website is the official system of record. Discord supports communication but does not replace official schedules, results, eligibility decisions, rulings, or sanctions. Staff decisions remain scope-limited and logged.