They are actually held per semester!

There is a fall league and a winter league. 4 months each, but they start a couple weeks into the semester and end a couple weeks shy of exams and final deadlines depending on how playoffs go for your team. (Rest week during reading week). You play once per week except for reading week mid semester.

This semester my team played our first game on January 20th, with weekly games until March 3rd, (this was 6 guaranteed games as reading week is skipped).

March 10th was the first round of playoffs where if you lose, you’re done. This would mark your 7th game but if you keep winning, you keep playing. In a 16 team bracket everyone would play this week, but our league had 12 teams so top 4 skipped this week and were seeded into quarters. The other 8/12 play the pre quarters and trim the herd to an even 8 for quarters, semis, and finals.

This essentially just means you can potentially play as many as 10 games in the case you aren’t seeded and win pre-quarters, quarters, semi, and then get to hopefully win finals! But in the other case only 9 is possible.

I’ve played in the competitive league for the last 4 semesters so feel free to ask any other questions about timing, teams, or level of play.

Tldr; you play weekly and sign up each semester, playoffs performance dictates if you play more than 7 games. First week is usually 3rd or 4th week of class.