DOWNINGTOWN —  Over 40 educators and coaches, along with 25 students and 12 sponsors, gathered on Monday, June 2, for the inaugural Pennsylvania Scholastic Esports League (PSEL) Esports Expo at the Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU). The event featured a Rocket League tournament and offered a full day of exploration into the dynamic world of scholastic esports.

The event provided participants with opportunities to witness competitive gameplay, explore cutting-edge esports solutions, and build valuable connections in the esports education space. The tournament ran bracket style with top teams competing in the final competition.

“We were thrilled to welcome so many of our scholastic esports colleagues from Pennsylvania and beyond to our first PSEL Esports Expo,” said Kammas Kersch, director of the PSEL Esports League. “As an educator-led league, it is important to us to continue to foster learning opportunities for both students and educators. One of the highlights of the day was getting to spend time networking with our PSEL community!”

Kersch, who is also the CCIU STEM services coordinator, opened the event with a welcome and introduction that focused on key pillars for setting up an esports program in schools.

Several sponsors hosted engaging spotlight sessions designed specifically for educators, offering valuable insights, tools, and resources to help support successful scholastic esports teams.

The Rocket League finals saw an exciting playoff between West Chester Henderson High School and Chichester High School, with both teams showcasing impressive skill and teamwork. In a thrilling finish, Henderson High School emerged as the tournament champions.

Matt Swan, CCIU STEM innovation specialist, emphasized, “The Rocket League matches were full of great highlight plays, and in the end West Chester Henderson walked away as the champions without losing a single game!”

Swan continued, “We want to congratulate the players from West Chester Henderson on their phenomenal performance and also recognize the players from Chichester High School & 21st Century Cyber Charter School. We look forward to our next chance to showcase the skills of these amazing student competitors!”

Karen Ruggles, DeSales University varsity esports program director, closed the event with a talk that channeled the day’s excitement into a reflection on the future of esports—encouraging attendees to recognize how gaming, competition, and community can fuel personal and professional growth, while inspiring them to embrace their individual potential to shape a thriving, positive future for the industry.

The event received overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees, sponsors, and students alike. Educators and parents praised the organization and valuable insights shared, sponsors appreciated the meaningful engagement, and students were energized by the high-level competition and community-centered atmosphere.

The CCIU Events Team and PSEL Esports Team is already planning for the next event and looks forward to bringing esports colleagues together again soon.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – In a bold new partnership set to reshape how brands and marketing teams connect with passion-led communities, UniPin, the leading digital entertainment enabler, joins forces with Minotaur, a team of next-generation creative marketing ecosystem builders for brands.

Together, the partnership aims to build truly authentic gateways not only into gaming communities, but into the wider ecosystem of fandom, pop culture, esports, and lifestyle – spaces where passion lives and audiences engage on their own terms. 

“With UniPin now as our valued co-players in this game called Brand Gamification, we’re more equipped than ever to deliver authentic solutions that truly connect with communities of millions of gamers, gaining access to literally thousands of titles through UniPin’s deep portfolio. That’s unbridled access for our partners in this vast playground of limitless possibilities,” said Rey Tiempo, Chief Creative Officer of Minotaur.

UniPin is best known as one of Asia’s most trusted online payment portals, providing game credits and top-up services for a wide range of popular titles like Mobile Legends, Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, Genshin Impact, and many more. Minotaur, on the other hand, are community builders with expertise in gaming, esports, tech, music, and fandom culture. 

Together, they have sealed an exclusive meeting of the minds, a match made in gaming heaven that taps into a whole new realm of targeted marketing strategies, specifically engaging and enabling the exponentially growing gamer segment, not only in the country but in the region. 

“This isn’t just about top-ups or tokens. It’s about providing value to the lives of consumers starting with our community groups vis-a-vis working closely with our brand partners and developing a real way in. The end goal is for us to be part of the daily conversations of the Filipino people, by creating real loyalty within ecosystems people already love, trust, and participate in,” said Jamie Paraso, CEO of Minotaur.

For brands, this means: plugging directly into active player bases; co-creating campaigns with gaming-endemic ideas; and engaging communities in a way that doesn’t disrupt, but resonates.

“We’ve always believed that the future of brand love lives in communities, and in particular, our space – the gaming community. Brands can no longer just advertise; they need to participate, add value, and earn their place. We’re glad to have Minotaur by our side as allies who look to help us grow from local to regional,” said DC Dominguez, UniPin Philippines Country Manager.

“This partnership isn’t about entering gaming as outsiders. It’s about being invited in, because the work respects the space. Minotaur understands that, and it’s going to be epic moving forward with our partnership that truly aims to grow communities and break the mold,” said Poeti Fatima, UniPin GM Business Global.

“It’s the beginning of a new era,” said Ashadi Ang, CEO of UniPin. “Whether it’s through grassroots tournaments, creator collaborations, or fully integrated platform engagements, UniPin x Minotaur is set to become the go-to bridge between brands and the communities they’ve trying to reach: authentically, and at scale.”

Students compete in Valorant, a multiplayer video game, in the Esport Lounge at the Bakke Recreation & Wellbeing Center, Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW–Madison

While esports isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind when you think of athletics, there are a lot of skills that you need to be a good esports athlete.

“There is a big mental aspect of esports, but part of it is just mechanical skills, like how well you aim and stuff,” says UW sophomore Arsalan Ahmad, an officer for the Madison eSports Club. “Genetics plays a huge role in other sports, a lot of times it’s just ‘oh are you tall enough to play basketball.’ With esports there is a lot of adaptation, it’s not only that you have to grind, but you also have to adapt to changing metas (most effective tactics available) like traditional sports.”

Ahmad, who’s studying computer science and data science, competes on the club’s top team for Valorant.

Esports, or playing video games competitively, has grown rapidly into a global industry. Games like League of Legends, Valorant, Apex Legends and Counter-Strike have become some of the most popular, with their top athletes being treated like celebrities, complete with dedicated training facilities and top tier sponsorship deals.

UW–Madison has also started providing more opportunities and spaces for esports on campus. While UW doesn’t have a varsity-level esports team like some universities, student-led groups such as the Madison Esports Club offer competition across multiple games.

The Madison Esports Club first started off as a group of students who gathered to play popular games such as DOTA, Starcraft and Hearthstone. In early 2020 the organization was adopted under the University Recreation and Wellbeing as a Sports Club, bringing it more funding and opportunities to compete against other teams.

The organization hosts teams for specific games, such as League of Legends, Valorant and Call of Duty. But students in the club don’t have to compete on a team — they can just find groups of other students to play games for fun.

Since COVID, gaming and video games has become one of the largest entertainment industries in the world,” said club president Eddie Kustner. “It’s good to have more opportunities for people who enjoy video games to go out and meet other people who enjoy video games.”

The Madison Esports Club competes in a variety of collegiate competitions locally and on a more national scale, including the Big Ten league and the Wisconsin Esports Conference, which includes other colleges in Wisconsin. The Big Ten is offering competitions in Super Smash Bros and Overwatch for the Spring 2025 semester, and the Madison Esports team is competing in both.

Outside of the team itself, the Bakke Recreation and Wellbeing Center has opened up a dedicated Esports lounge fitted with computers optimized for gaming. Esports has also been offered as a part of intramural sports, with semester-long competitions and shorter tournaments.

“Fostering local competition is really good. Also just connecting with other students on campus,” says Arsalan Ahmad. “It’s a great way to socialize with other students, just like it is with other intramural sports.”

Kustner would like to see esports grow here. “We have an esports room and it’s great that we have that, that’s a great first step,” he says.

It can be difficult to convince up-and-coming esports athletes to compete on a collegiate level because the prime age for gaming is on the younger side. Most talented players make their professional debut before they even graduate from high school.

“The long-term goals are to support the team and to provide more opportunities for the community to grow. The most successful esports communities in college have a very strong social scene and they have physical areas where people want to come, which fosters community” Kustner says.

Written by Serena Wang

Link to original story: https://news.wisc.edu/the-growth-of-esports-at-uw-madison/

Districts in New York, South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland have partnered with ClassDojo. 

New districts using ClassDojo for Districts include:

• Lynchburg (VA) City Schools

• Manor ISD, Edgewood ISD, Laredo ISD, and Ysleta ISD (TX)

• Pittsburgh (PA) Public Schools

• Alamosa (CO) School District

• Sylvania (OH) Schools

• Charleston (SC) County Schools

• Diocese of Rockville (MD) Schools

• Linden (NY) Public Schools

ClassDojo offers communication across all schools and automatic translation in more than 130 languages. The tool can be used for districtwide messaging, announcements and updates and offers seamless integration with SIS, SSO and rosters.

“As we wrap up our first year as a ClassDojo for Districts partner, one of the biggest benefits has been the ability to create a more unified communication experience across our schools,” explains Will Herring, Assistant Director of Technology at Moore County Schools in North Carolina. 

“ClassDojo was already widely used and well regarded in our classrooms, so it made sense to build on that foundation at the district level. Just as important is the data – we’re no longer sending messages into a void. Now we can see when families are engaging – and that insight is shaping everything from parent engagement strategies to our broader school improvement plans.”

“Our goal is to make it easy for every family to stay informed, feel welcome, and be involved – without adding more work for educators,” adds Dr. Chad A. Stevens, Head of K12 Engagement t ClassDojo. “We’re proud to support districts that are building stronger communities around their students by helping district leaders improve communication, streamline tools, and better connect with every family.”

Last year, Five Sigma, a dedicated EdTech growth fund, acquired a stake in ClassDojo. ClassDojo is heavily used in the UK, with more than 70 percent of schools having accessed and used ClassDojo. With an extensive user base of approximately 50 million, primarily under the age of 13, ClassDojo is utilised in around 90 percent of U.S. schools and across 180 countries worldwide.

British Esports, the UK’s national body for esports, will host the 2024/25 Student Champs Grand Finals on 5 July at the National Esports Performance Campus in Sunderland.

The finals mark the conclusion of a season that saw close to 750 teams compete in over 13,000 matches, involving more than 3,000 students from across the country.

The tournament, open to students aged 12 and over, is the UK’s leading grassroots esports competition for secondary schools and colleges. The finals will feature matches in Overwatch 2, League of Legends, Rocket League, and VALORANT.

The Student Champs platform is increasingly integrated into formal education pathways. Over 65 percent of Further Education colleges now participate in weekly matches, and the tournament supports qualifications such as the BTEC in Esports and the new Esports Leadership Programme, studied by over 15,000 students globally.

Students from the College of Esports have also contributed to event production, applying learning from coursework to professional environments.

Chester King, president at British Esports, says: “We are incredibly proud of every student and team participating in this year’s Student Champs. The growth in participation, level of competition, and dedication shown by these young athletes exemplify the power of esports in developing crucial life skills.”

Bootcamp access and team line-up

All finalists will receive access to a performance bootcamp at the National Esports Performance Campus ahead of the finals. Teams will train and prepare for their matches in the facility, which is designed to mirror professional esports environments.

Finalist matchups are as follows:

• Overwatch 2: Confetti Arrows (Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies) vs. Antares.eXe (Exeter College)

• League of Legends: Burnley Esports Elite LoL (Burnley College) vs. Croydon Prime (Croydon College)

• Rocket League: York Vikings (York College) vs. Ariel.eXe (Exeter College)

• VALORANT: GCS Owls NatVal (Gower College Swansea) vs. CONEL Cyphers Valorant (The College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London)

Oneallsports will sponsor the MVP award, which will recognize individual players demonstrating standout performance and sportsmanship during the finals.