---
title: "Nintendo Sponsorship Brings Splatoon 3 to 80,000+ Students"
date: 2025-08-16
author:
   - name: YELLOW
     link: https://sendou.ink/u/great-hero-yellow
---

Article originally posted at: [https://www.splatoonstronghold.com/news/nintendo-sponsorship-brings-splatoon-3-to-80000-students](https://www.splatoonstronghold.com/news/nintendo-sponsorship-brings-splatoon-3-to-80000-students) 

# **Nintendo Sponsorship Brings Splatoon 3 to 80,000+ Students**

Splatoon has long held an expansive community-run competitive scene; outside of a few major tournaments like the Splatoon World Championships, Nintendo has done little to sponsor competitive events for the series outside of Japan. In the United States, the scene is about to expand with the announcement of a partnership between the Interstate Scholastic Esports Alliance (ISEA) and Nintendo of America, which will give over 80,000 students the opportunity to compete in *Splatoon 3, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,* and *Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.*

ISEA’s partnership with Nintendo of America will kick off in the Fall 2025 semester, and will be providing Nintendo Switch Online memberships and digital game download codes, with ISEA supporting the school-based events held on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch OLED systems. The partnership is expected to bring greater esports accessibility to tens of thousands of students across various age and grade ranges. 

Per their website, ISEA is, “a nationwide coalition of educator-run scholastic esports organizations serving students and schools in the K-12 space.” Their goal is to help students grow across all levels and expand the use of esports in schools. ISEA’s scope covers grades 4 through 12 (elementary, middle, high school) and operates in 23 states: 

![member-orgs-ISEA](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f4977a6e-d3c3-46ae-b075-a153d87fd5e2)
*ISEA operates in 23 US States: Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.*

As noted above, ISEA does not operate across all 50 of the United States, but they are open to esports entities becoming members of their organization and establishing connections in new states. It is important to note that in order to become eligible to be a member of ISEA, the esports entity has to meet the following criteria: 

- Be part of a state-level organization, not just support local groups  
- Serve at minimum ten (10) groups who would participate in esports events  
- Be an active, registered entity within the operating state   
- Not compete with a currently-existing ISEA organization

ISEA also mandates that new organizations can only join if a current member of ISEA recommends them for consideration, so reaching out to the organization is a crucial first step. 

This new partnership between Nintendo of America and the Interstate Scholastic Esports Alliance brings excitement for the future of the competitive esports scene, not just for *Splatoon 3*, but for other games as well\! It is the largest partnership of its kind since Nintendo partnered with PlayVS in April 2021, to offer *Splatoon 2* and *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate* as esports in the Fall 2021 semester. 

PlayVS provides the winning teams of their yearly esports tournament—PlayVS Cup—with academic scholarships for college education across every full-season game title. In 2025, PlayVS awarded its *Splatoon 3* PlayVS Cup 1st place winning team $6,000 USD in scholarship money, and $2,000 USD to the 2nd place team. 

The mission between PlayVS and ISEA is the same: to provide students with a safe, enjoyable, and accessible entry to the world of gaming, to bolster their personal, academic, and social growth. They provide organizations with support to meet these goals, whether it’s with resources, coaching, starting up, expanding, or other related needs. 

If you are interested in learning more about ISEA and PlayVS, you can find them at: 

Interstate Scholastic Esports Alliance (ISEA): [https://www.iseaesports.org/](https://www.iseaesports.org/)   
PlayVS: [https://www.playvs.com/](https://www.playvs.com/) 

Original Posting Date: August 16, 2025

Written and formatted for publication by [YELLOW](https://bsky.app/profile/great-hero-yellow.bsky.social).
