Riverside County Esports League

Esports is popular all over the world. This is creating entertainment, business, and employment opportunities that rival even the largest sports leagues. From an educational perspective, esports offers an opportunity to students to find a connection to their school that may not exist for some students through traditional clubs and programs. The research is clear: students who are involved in extracurricular activities do better in school than students that are not. With at least 90% of young people playing video games either on personal devices, consoles, or PC games, esports provides a connection to school that is accessible to the vast majority of students. Research has also shown that as many as 70% of students involved in school esports activities were not involved in any other school activities before their involvement in esports.  In addition to this, the esports industry is replete with job opportunities for students as creatives, production managers, organizers, consultants, programmers, and broadcasters. We believe the opportunities to safely engage students in school-related esports activities for both entertainment and learning far outweigh the perceived detrimental effects of screen time and video game violence. 

This is yet to be determined in our young league. So far, we have only played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a very popular game with animated, unrealistic violence, a sort of modern king of the hill game where the object is to knock one's opponent off of various platforms. We also have Rocket League, which is basically soccer played with cars. Eventually, when schools are better prepared to participate, we can expand to PC games such as League of Legends and other platform games such as the Madden series, FIFA, or the NBA2K series. We plan to avoid first-person shooters or games with realistic, warlike violence with realistic weapons. Due to its affordability and portability, the Nintendo Switch is our preferred platform.

Smash.gg is an excellent platform for hosting tournaments and would be ideal to use except for their marketing policies. Here is a direct quote from their Terms of Service: "Marketing: We may use your personal data to contact you in the future for our marketing and advertising purposes, including without limitation to inform you about services or events we believe might be of interest to you, to develop promotional or marketing materials and provide those materials to you, and to display content and advertising on or off the services that we believe might be of relevance to you. In particular, Tournament Organizers should note that we may use information we receive or collect regarding General Users (including, without limitation attendees via a Tournament Organizer's event registration page) in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy, including in the manner set forth above. "It is illegal to market to students under 13 years old without parent permission (COPPA). Since we service students from middle school to high school, we cannot effectively monitor the age of students. As a result, at this time, we choose to avoid the possible pitfalls and illegality of marketing to young students by not requiring them to register for services for which we have no influence or control.

As it stands right now, only high school students can start a club NASEF. COPPA may be the reason they have not yet allowed middle schools to register their clubs with their organization.

Indeed, you can, and our esports release form allows that. This league, however, is open to every middle and high school student in the county that meets our 2.0 GPA requirement or the school's club or esports team requirements, and it is completely free to students. Unfortunately, we do not have the staff to efficiently verify each participant's eligibility. 

So far, we've found that Google Forms under the RCOE domain is the easiest way to receive registration information and competition results and still protect student data. We are certainly open to other ideas, but we will always obey the law and put student safety foremost in our concerns. 

So far, we have found that Remind is the fastest and easiest way to communicate with students and for students to communicate with one another to arrange their matches. Remind is a trusted platform that is used in schools throughout California and the nation. The ease with which tournament information can be safely shared only with intended persons makes Remind a good platform for our purposes.

Participation in RCOE Esports League is free to students and their schools. Of course, for in-person events there can be costs involved for travel. Those cost, if any, must be borne by the school. 

While this process is not fully in place today, the roster will expedite tournament registrations and help schools and parents to know what their students are doing with RCOE Esports League. 

No. Upon parent or guardian request, however, we will take down specific photos or images within a reasonable time. 

With most tournaments, the prize for the winner will include a contribution to a scholarship fund for the winner's school. Depending on the size of the tournament, the scholarship prize will be from $500 to $1500. Any senior at the school can apply for these funds. Awarded scholarships will be distributed in $500 to $1500 increments directly to the college upon verified enrollment. 

Any senior at a school in which funds have been awarded may apply.

Thanks to our partner, ViewSonic, our sponsors, and the Riverside County Office of Education Foundation, high school students and teams participating in Riverside County Esports League tournaments who have submitted their rosters and permission slips are eligible to win prizes and contributions to a scholarship fund exclusively for their school. Here's how it works:

High school esports clubs and teams (teams) register their teams with the North American Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF). Be sure to affiliate your team with Riverside County Esports League. 

• Teams submit their completed rosters and permission slips to RCOE Esports by sharing a Google folder with that information with shickman@rcoe.us, hbaynes@rcoe.us, and ndelgado@rcoe.us with edit privileges.

• Register for individual or team tournaments.

• Rostered students can register for individual Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournaments. School staff coaches or advisors must register for team tournaments (Rocket League and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Crew Battles). 

• Win! With some tournaments, when you do so, a minimum of $500 will be contributed to a scholarship fund for which seniors at the winning school may apply. Scholarships of up to $1500 (or the fund balance, if less) to cover education costs will be granted to approved scholarship applications upon verified college enrollment.  Distribution will be made directly to the college by the Riverside County Office of Education Foundation. 

• While we intend is to distribute all scholarship funds to students from the winning schools, funds awarded to a school fund may not carry over into the next school year. Undistributed funds can be added to the general esports scholarship fund or prize pool.

We're excited to announce that with some tournaments, middle school students who win our championship tournaments will be eligible to win scholarship contributions through the RCOE Brighter Future Fund (see website for details). For other tournaments, middle school prizes could include gift cards for winners and a minimum $20 Nintendo gift card issued to the student, esports advisor, or site principal to support your school's esports program.  

For more information visit the following links:

Sign up your club with North American Scholastic Esports (NASEF) 

Riverside County Office of Education Foundation

Scholarship Application and Instructions

ViewSonic Corporation

Awarded scholarships