June 2023 Newsletter
Contents
A Word from the League
August Esports Development Clinic
State Championship Recap
Coach Feedback from Spring
The Why? League Fees Next Season
MNVL Youtube Video of the Month
A Word from the League
Hey all,
That’s a wrap on another hard fought season by all teams. We keep saying it because it’s true, the competitiveness and skill progresses season after season. The dedication the students put into their game, their team, and school continues to impress. This can only be achieved by having phenomenal coaches in place supporting them along the way, so thank you to everyone for making the Spring ‘23 season a success!
Below you’ll find the results of the spring State Finals, which consisted of seven tournaments over two weekends this season. Also included is the summary of our end of season coaches survey and more information about the upcoming Esports Development Clinic happening this summer.
After another busy season, we’re getting right back to work making the necessary changes needed for fall to keep this a league you’re all proud to compete in. Our coaches were heard in the end of year meeting and from the coaches feedback survey and we want to thank them for their input to help shape the future of MNVL.
Also, with the end of a season means we say goodbye to our group of student interns from spring. This past season we had the most student help we’ve ever had in MNVL and they did incredible work to advance our mission. They always managed to act professional with an eagerness to learn and they meshed as a team behind the scenes making work very enjoyable each day. We’ll always have their back and wish them all the best of luck in their future endeavors!
Have a relaxing summer everyone,
Minnesota Varsity League
Summer Coaches Clinic
Join us for our inaugural Esports Development Clinic on Wednesday, August 2nd at Wisdom Gaming Studios!
The Esports Development Clinic will include a variety of speaker-led breakout sessions including but not limited to: new school onboarding, collegiate recruitment, building an esports lab with the right equipment, game specific coaching, fundraising and the power of social media in promotion.
Following the clinic, there will be a social hour for a chance to catch up, meet new people AND play games! (It’s finally our turn!)
MNVL and Bluum have a shared goal to provide organizations and their stakeholders with the knowledge and resources they need to build successful, sustainable and equitable academic esports programs.
We are so excited for our communities to come together, learn and make our Minnesota programs stronger! RSVP below to reserve your FREE spot.
Register here: https://wisdomstudios.gg/events/mnvl-esports-development-clinic-presented-by-bluum/
State Finals Recap
MNVL hosted the best high school talent in Minnesota for State Finals in May at Wisdom Gaming Studios in the Mall of America. High energy and passion was felt throughout the venue as the players put on a show for the audience, while giving it their all during the most important stage of the spring season. There were teams from 42 different high schools represented.
For the first time MNVL was able to hold the State Finals over a two weekend span, allowing more teams to be invited and increasing the length of series’ in some tournaments to give teams a fair opportunity to fight for their spots. Are we sure glad we did.. every tournament was exciting until the very end and many upsets occurred.
Spring ‘23 Champions
SSBU 3v3 Crew Battle: Big Lake High School
Valorant Open: Apple Valley High School
Fortnite 2v2: Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa High School
Chess: Apple Valley High School
Minecraft 4v4: South Minneapolis High School
Smite: Big Lake High School
Rocket League 3v3: Rogers High School
It’s always great to see everyone in-person after a long season played online. Thank you to the players, coaches, parents, and sponsors for making it a successful tournament. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback and how to continue to improve for future events and we will be implementing improvements every season to make it the best possible experience for attendees and competitors.
You can find all of the captured moments from both weekends HERE in the photo gallery. They’re free to download! You can also find the stream recap of each tournament on the MNVL YouTube.
We want to strive to continue making this an enjoyable event and welcome any feedback for future improvements.
SSBU 3v3 Crew Battles
Friday, May 12th SSBU players entered the arena and kicked off the MNVL Spring 2023 finals! This season had a twist for ssbu players and was in a 3v3 crew battle format. It was the only double elimination tournament during both weekends and we had 16 teams competing at state.
1st Place - Big Lake Skill Havers
2nd Place - Eagan Varsity
3rd Place - Chisago Lakes High School Wild
Valorant Open
Following SSBU was the Valorant Open tournament on Saturday, May 13th. The “open” style allows schools to be able to send more than one team to state if they qualify, allowing all teams that compete an opportunity. Valorant was the only tournament on Saturday and 16 teams were invited to compete. After the first two rounds in the bracket were completed, the final two rounds were played the following morning on Sunday, May 14th.
1st Place - Apple Valley High School Valorant: Varsity
2nd Place - Lakeville North High School Panthers
3rd Place - St Louis Park Valorant
Fortnite 2v2
In the aftermath of the Valorant finals in the morning, we held our first ever Fortnite state finals in the evening the wrap up the first weekend. Fortnite was played 2v2 in box fights, zone wars, and realisitics on a custom built map by MNVL. With a successful inaugural season, we had 32 teams attend our first ever Fortnite state finals.
1st Place - Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa III - Fortnite
2nd Place - BlueSky Online
3rd Place - Burnsville High School Fortnite B
Chess
The very next week was weekend two of the MNVL state finals. Saturday, May 20th the 16 best high school chess players in Minnesota competed in the morning on Chess.com with 5|5 (5 minutes, + 5 seconds each turn) format.
1st Place - Apple Valley High School Chess: Clasher81
2nd Place - Richfield High School Chess
3rd Place - Mahtomedi High School House
Minecraft 4v4
The 200IQ plays continued into the evening with 16 of our top Minecraft teams competing in 4v4 bedwars. Minecraft matches take place in the custom MNVL server built for all competitive matches with five maps to choose from with an updated meta for each season.
1st Place - South Minneapolis Los Tigres
2nd Place - Mahtomedi Minecraft
3rd Place - Hill Murray Minecraft Alpha
Smite 5v5
On Sunday morning the best teams in Smite came out to battle as gods for the state title. Smite is our first ever developer sanctioned league and those competing also got an added bonus of 100k Gems (in game currency) for participating! Thanks Hi-Rez.
1st Place: Big Lake High School
2nd Place: Blaine High School
3rd Place: Burnsville High School
Rocket League 3v3
On Sunday evening, the last tournament of the Spring ‘23 season was Rocket League 3v3. 16 teams were invited and kept the audience on the edge of their seats the entire time.
1st Place - Rogers RLV
2nd Place - Burnsville Varsity
3rd Place - St Louis Park Rocket League Varsity
Coach Feedback: Spring 2023
We’ve gathered all of the feedback from the form we shared after our end of year coaches meeting. The feedback given is greatly appreciated and is how MNVL can continue to make this a league your program wants to compete in. We’ll break it down, question by question for you below.
Q: If MNVL implements a student fee, with exceptions for low income students, would you still participate in our league?
It’s something MNVL unfortunately has to do to survive as a league and the first thought was about how to still allow everyone to participate. This is not a new obstacle we want to introduce to make it harder for kids to play, so we’ll work with coaches who have students who need financial assistance to play in MNVL after league fees are initiated this fall.
Q: Is there a middle school in your district that you know is looking to start an esports program? (this helps us know if it is time to start supporting a MS league)
Jake will begin the steps to create a middle school league after seeing how many districts have interest. No timeline can be given for it, but after the processes have been set up, Jake will reach out to the coaches who marked “yes” in the form at a later date.
Q: What is the absolute maximum fee per player that you would be willing to pay for one season?
Answers were all over the board for this one with $50 receiving the most votes. That is not the set price yet, as we still have some research to do before confirming the new entry fee for the upcoming season. Everyone’s opinion were wanted on this matter to represent different situations, instead of choosing the number of our own liking.
Q: Should MNVL allow same district but different school teams. For example, should we allow Chaska Chanhassen to compete as one program. (Currently MNVL requires all players be at the same school to play on a team together, with exceptions for home schooled kids and those with special circumstances)
This is pretty split and when discussed in the coaches meeting, this may be a scenario that comes down to school size and/or geographical location for schools in small towns. It will be situational depending on those factors to help schools be able to field rosters, but set limitations so “all star” teams cannot be formed in large districts.
Q: How do you think we should we handle forfeits with respect to tiebreakers?
A lot of really good feedback was given for this question. It’s a difficult matter and can impact the results at the end of the regular season greatly. Some coaches had stronger opinions than others about it and a few ideas mentioned could be our best solution to this messy problem.
Q: What are you most interested in learning more about as a coach/program director at the MNVL Coaches Clinic?
Topics of focus:
1. Fundraising initiatives for your program
2. General tips and tricks for running your program
3. Device acquirement and PC lab build outs
4. How to setup school streams/broadcasts
4. Individual game learning sessions (i.e. How to coach Valorant, etc.)
Q: What programs should MNVL focus on first?
Where MNVL should focus:
1. Expanding the league with more schools
2. Fundraising initiatives
3. Working with colleges, etc. for official match locations for teams to play at
4. Assist in finding equipment for school labs
4. Coach development opportunities
Q: Of the following games which would you like to see MNVL add based on student interest (Note, some games cannot be added due to exclusive contracts or lack of custom lobbies. Those are: Blizzard titles, EA titles
Feedback
We can’t thank the coaches enough who took the time and completed the end of year coaches survey. We want to hear every opinion and critique so we can continue to make this a better league for you all. This is valid during the season as well and not just at the end of year coaches meeting. If at any point you have feedback for MNVL, please share it with us! This is your league and without you all it wouldn’t be the community it is today.
League Fees Starting Fall Season
Hey everyone, MNVL Director Jake Utities here. I wanted to give insight to our community as to why we now need to charge league fees and how we plan to implement them.
TLDR: MNVL will be charging a fee for students to participate in future seasons, and that fee will likely be somewhere near $50 per season. MNVL will also have a form that coaches can fill out for any student who cannot afford to pay the fee, and they will be admitted to MNVL at no cost.
Our mission is and always has been to spread esports to as many students as possible due to the positive effects we see it have on our students. MNVL’s first season ran with 10 schools almost that were run by almost all volunteer coaches, and in that season we did charge a fee to participate. That fee was used exclusively on paying our stream team and buying trophies. I should also note at the time we had only four people being paid a small stipend (about $100 for the season) to run the streams (Thunder McFadden, Skeptir, Zwiggity, and myself), and I was the lone admin for the league in my off hours while I worked full time for Wisdom on other projects.
As we grew, we were able to convince a few sponsors to pay the fee for some of our leagues. Version 1/Rokkr footed the bill for our Call of Duty and Alpine/Torrent Esports payed the registration costs for Rocket League (the rest were still at a fee). It was the next season that both organizations decided to sponsor the entire league, and pay all registrations. At the time that was possible/affordable with only 300 students in the league. I had moved full time to MNVL, and Wisdom was fronting the bill of my salary, as well as most of the registration payments since Alpine/Torrent is a Wisdom owned property. So basically Wisdom Gaming had been fronting the full cost of MNVL from the start.
Fast forward and Alpine/Torrent has closed its doors, and our other sponsors are no longer able to afford the registration costs of our league that consisted of 1,234 active players last season. That coupled with new needs of the league due to our larger size means our expenses have gone up. We hired Jayson in November 2021 when I couldn’t keep up alone any longer, and our intern team has grown to 17 students (almost all paid). So to accommodate the growth of esports in the state, and to make sure we can continue to provide the services we currently do, we must find a way to be financially sustainable.
Although we have found success in bringing on new sponsors (announced in Fall), and with our new nonprofit status fund we hope to bring in even more. Those two revenue streams will account for about 2/3 of our expenses, and league fees will cover the final third. I wanted to be as transparent as humanly possible about why we are doing this, and explain how we got to this point so the community can understand that this decision was not made hastily nor due to unethical reasons.
With that said, next season we will be implementing a fee of around $50 per student to participate in the Minnesota Varsity League. We will also have a form for coaches available on our community Discord that they can fill out to allow our less priveleged students to play for free. We are currently working with our platform Leaguespot to determine exactly how the MNVL fee will be implemented, and we will share that with coaches before registrations open.
Thank you and we appreciate you all very much here at MNVL.
Jake Utities
MNVL Youtube
View our new YouTube channel where we will highlight our players in weekly content!