**Tl;dr**
---------
- Scholastic esports is the best way for Riot and the RSAA to encourage schools to invest in long-term support for gaming communities on campus
- Widening the high school League of Legends ecosystem allowing schools additional choices on how and where to compete, and providing organizers more opportunities to get involved
- The [community guidelines][1] have been updated to allow for more high school and collegiate competitions, effective immediately
Over the last several months, we’ve collected feedback from across the scholastic esports community — students, teachers, administrators, tournament organizers, LCS teams, and more. Based on what we’ve heard, as well as our long-term goals for the space, we’re ready to share a few changes to our approach.
Why Scholastic?
---------------
Riot Games aspires to be the most player-focused game company in the world. Accomplishing this goal takes many forms. For scholastic esports, we endeavor to create communities where every student who plays our games has classmates to game with and a school that supports them.
Our first step in that direction is to give schools a reason to invest and support their gaming communities, and for Riot Games, esports is the best way for us to make that a reality.
Esports translates the value of gaming into a language that school administrators new to the space understand - they may not “get” video games, but they understand why supporting healthy competition and teamwork, similar to athletics, is valuable beyond giving students something to do after school.
We’ve been working to build bigger and more meaningful competition for more players and infrastructure to support them for generations. The success of this investment continues to pay out in the collegiate scene. Starting this Thursday is our ninth Collegiate Championship where eight schools will vie for the CLOL title at the LCS Arena.
We’re proud that CLOL has reached a new level of trust and stability — with the addition of the Fall Invitational, college teams have more competition than ever — and are pleased that the 2023 format changes have been positively received.
High School Esports
-------------------
High school esports is a cornerstone of our wider esports community — it helps build connections between students and their schools, teaches students valuable new skills through gaming, and creates a stronger pipeline for talented players to pursue their competitive careers. Few things are more important to the long-term stability of North American esports than a healthy, inclusive and supportive high school esports system.
After significant discussion, we’ve determined that the best way to set up high school esports for success is to further open, rather than narrow, avenues for competition and organic growth.
Going forward, our priority with high school esports is to create more opportunities for schools and players to decide how, when, and where they want to compete. By actively listening to their needs, Riot and the RSAA will find ways to support them where it matters most.
To that end, we will be moving to a non-exclusive high school model, where schools can work together with providers of their choice to find the right way to compete.
NA Community Competition Guidelines
-----------------------------------
Effective immediately, we have updated the [NA League of Legends Community Guidelines][2] in order to give organizers more room to run bigger competitions over more time in more places.
For collegiate, we raised the ceiling on participating schools and competition length, and removed additional limitations on naming conventions. All conferences are free to [apply for Partner Conference status][3], which provides a few perks that extend beyond the Community Guidelines.
For high school, we’re removing restrictions surrounding competition size, duration, structure, and affiliation with governing bodies. Organizers may run a competition that meets the “Tier 1” competition guidelines exclusively for high school teams, so long as those schools are from the same state or province, and the competition does not claim to crown a national champion. We believe these changes will transition high school esports to an open and sustainable ecosystem. To see the full updated guidelines, head directly to the [Guidelines page][4].
But we know we can still do better, and we want schools, conferences, and third parties to be able to meaningfully contribute.
What’s Next?
------------
Over the next school year, we’ll closely monitor how organizers, schools and students respond to these significant changes. We want to hear feedback from folks on the ground about what’s working and what’s missing the mark.
This is just the start — our long-term goal is to directly support (with third party assistance) official high school state and provincial championships across North America, with third party college competitions filling the natural gaps in the College Season calendar. As always, expect to hear more from us as we attempt to achieve this goal together.
For more information on the RSAA and scholastic esports, follow [@RSAAOfficial][5] on Twitter.
[1]: https://developer.riotgames.com/policies/na-tournaments
[2]: https://developer.riotgames.com/policies/na-tournaments
[3]: https://rsaa.riotgames.com/partner-conferences/
[4]: https://developer.riotgames.com/policies/na-tournaments
[5]: https://twitter.com/RSAAOfficial
