About

Founded in 2020 as PVCC Esports, Puma Esports is an academic-competitive program at Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, AZ. The program competes regionally in the Maricopa Collegiate Esports League and internationally in the National Esports Collegiate Conference. Puma Esports is a varsity-level competitive collegiate Esports program offering scholarships to student-gamers who exhibit the talent and values inherent to the program's vision and mission. 

Academically, Puma Esports and Paradise Valley Community College offer certificates in Esports Business Operations and Esports Event Production (forthcoming, fall 2026). The program also partners with West-Mec to offer these certificates of completion to high-school juniors and seniors. High school student-gamers who are part of a West-Mec cohort attending PVCC are eligible to compete on Puma Esports teams; however, if they do so, they forfeit their eligibility to compete for their high school teams. Players are not required to be in the academic program to tryout for and compete on Puma Esports teams.

Puma Esports strives to offer a competitive, supportive gaming community built on the program's four pillars: Community, Competition, Cognition, and Collaboration. Programming in mental preparedness, leadership development, physical health, and planning beyond the two-year commitment at PVCC are offered to all members of the Puma Esports organization. Travel to LAN tournaments is a part of Puma Esports, including local, regional, and national tournaments. The program also welcomes both competitive and casual players to join. 

The program hosts the Sundown Tournament Series for Arizona and area high school Esports programs. The Sundown series features SSBU at every tournament and a rotation of other games played during the Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) high-school championship season. The series features five tournaments per academic year, with three tournaments hosted in fall and two in spring. Spring tournaments are for AIA Esports member schools ONLY or schools who are members of their state's equivalent high school athletics/competition association. Sundown tournaments are excellent ways for Puma Esports players to get experience in tournament organization, bracket running, streaming, and casting. Additionally, Esports certificate students, including those in the West-Mec program, are heavily involved in the planning and execution of the four tournaments hosted at Paradise Valley Community College. One tournament per year, Sundown: Voyager, is hosted at either a community partner venue or an AIA high school.