Campus League Season 1 Expands Reach, Adds Martial Arts and Athletics Branches

JAKARTA - The student sports competition, Campus League, officially entered Season 1 with a new breakthrough in the form of the addition of various individual sports (cabor) and martial arts.

This step was taken to explore the hidden potential of student athletes outside of the doubles discipline, which has dominated so far.

Campus League CEO, Ryan Gozali, said that the expansion of this sport, especially through the UniGames event, aims to find the best talent for Indonesia in other sports sectors.

In addition to basketball, badminton, and futsal, this event will also compete in the sports of taekwondo, kempo, jujitsu, wrestling, billiards, women's football, 3X3 basketball, and athletics.

"We see a lot of our medal warehouses that have not been optimized at the campus level, especially martial arts and other Olympic sports that are individual in nature."

"The majority of them are actually students, but the competition is often unpredictable," said Ryan at the launch of Campus League Season 1 at Agora Mall, Jakarta, Monday, April 20, 2026.

Ryan added that standardizing the competition schedule was the key so that the campus could make careful planning in recruiting and nurturing its athletes.

"We want to make this a culture. With a definite schedule, the campus can prepare for it from a long time ago. Our goal is to send as many athletes as possible to the international level," he said.

In line with Ryan, President Director of the Djarum Foundation, Victor Rachmat Hartono, expressed his optimism about the success of this event.

Even though there was a significant spike from two cities in the previous season to six cities this season (Samarinda, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, Jakarta, and Yogyakarta), Victor believes Ryan Gozali's leadership will bring maximum results.

"This is an event that is always awaited. I am optimistic that it will be a great success. Ryan has done things like this before, so I have no doubt that he will be able to do it," said Victor.

Apart from achievements on the field, Campus League still adheres to the philosophy of character development. Ryan explained that in Indonesia, only about one to three percent of student athletes will later have a career in the professional field.

"We hope that one to three percent is already very good. Hopefully, the Campus League will be the foundation so that when they enter the professional league, they already have high selling power (IP Talent) so that the industry will also rise in class," said Ryan.

The success of expansion outside Java, especially to Samarinda, is inseparable from collaboration with strategic partners such as Bayan Peduli. Ryan hopes that this cooperation model can be replicated on other large islands in Indonesia.

"The cost to do this is not cheap. We are very grateful to Bayan Peduli who helped us reach Kalimantan. We hope that other 'Bayan-Bayan' will emerge so that we can reach all corners of Indonesia," he said.

As an opener, the Surabaya region will start the series of competitions through the basketball branch on April 22-29, 2026 at the GOR Basket of the State University of Surabaya, which is attended by 24 teams from 17 universities including participants from Makassar and Jayapura.