Collegiate deep dive, it's Winter Finals time, COD Ireland on Nemesis, sustainability is realistic, growth metrics and more...

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Hi there,

November started with the fanfare of Riot Games’ League of Legends Worlds Grand Final event In London and finished with another month of graft, learnings and more progress….as the rush for Christmas built up.

The Northern European League of Legends community reacted favourably to the news that Nativz Esports Club is stepping out of the NLC, while we shared this with you in advance, we co-ordinated our community announcement with the organisers. Take a look at the reaction for yourself…

Call of Duty Ireland became our first launch partner on the Nemesis platform, kicking off the first of their 10 tournaments over the next 12 months. Office Showdown is now a real thing, soft launch for Ireland’s Esports Company Series is underway and we’re now setting up for a push leading into the Christmas break.

🚨 What is staring us in the face is this weekend’s Ireland Esports Collegiate Winter Semester Finals event at Dogpatch Labs, Dublin. More info here. 🚨

We also felt it was time to create some clarity on our various products and services as we continue to innovate. It’s all laid out for you below 👇🏼

INDUSTRY NEWS

🗞️ In Focus – Here’s something to get you thinking… “In competitive esports, professional leagues often stand out with huge sponsorships, massive audiences, and celebrity players. However, collegiate esports is quietly building a different kind of momentum, grounded in sustainability, student development and community engagement.” These are the opening words from Ivan Kerkoc in our feature article you can find below.

This statement hit home in a number of ways….none moreso than the fact that it plays to the heart of what we’ve been building for the past two years. As we start to accelerate our engagement with Administrators and Educators, we’re acutely aware that we need to not only look at the performance aspect but equally help unlock integration with academic programs, whether in game design, management, or psychology—they create a pipeline that benefits students regardless of whether they become pro players.

Here’s a few other news pieces that we found interesting from across the esports and gaming media;

🗞️ Sustainability of Rocket Leagues’ esports at the top level has seen top teams departing due to the lack of sponsorship, digital revenue and events

🗞️ FIFA are going deeper into Web3 with Mythical Games. FIFA Rivals is to launch as a follow up to the highly successful NFL Rivals with an anticipated user base of 100m

🗞️ The Premier League says gamers ‘significantly more likely to consume our content and become lifelong fans of our clubs’…bet you didn’t see that one coming!

SUCCESSES

🚀 Office Showdown was revealed and the soft launch began, interest is definitely there. We’ve targeted March for the Spring Tournament, now to drive early registrations

🚀 Call of Duty Ireland went live on Nemesis with their first event now underway, they’ve got another nine planned over the next 12 months

🚀 Nativz Esports Academy is benefiting now we’re out of the NLC. Counter-Strike 2 team is live, next to go live is Teamfight Tactics, Rocket League and Valorant to follow

Reaction from the owner of Verdant Esports on the news of our departure ❤️

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CHALLENGES

When we first took over what was Legion Collegiate one of my first questions was why don’t the students pay some sort of registration fee…..the reaction, “it’s always been a free-to-play tournament, the same as the UK.” With no sponsors at the time and two weeks until the series went live it wasn’t the ideal situation to say the least.

Here comes the big however…..we’ve now managed to start building a family of partners, unlocking merchandise options and with three LAN/in-person events ticketing is now on the table. We’ve got the basics moving.

The last challenge was to secure funding from the competing universities. Two years ago esports operated on the periphery of the University societies and clubs environment. Esports typically sat within the technology focused student societies.

Two years on and our competing Universities have agreed to start contributing via a Participation Levy. Sustainability is now achievable.

We now need to build depth into the Collegiate product and strengthen our growth potential. Here’s a few questions we’re exploring as we start looking to 2025/26:

🕹️ How do we evolve our competition formats to lift performance levels while protecting the social aspect of student esports?

🕹️ What do we need to do to enhance the impact for brands that partner with us?

🕹️ Where do we start building value for educators and administrators as we continue to build deeper relationships with our participating Universities across the island?

🕹️ How do we create value for our network of Student Reps, our people on the ground within the student environment, that will become more important to our growth?

Next step - this Saturday we’re holding our first mini-conference with our Student Reps, the aim is to kick-start planning for our 2025/26 Series. It’s time we leverage our in-person events and bring forward the planning process. The aim? We want to sign off improvements/changes at the Spring Finals event in April!

NEEDS

👀 We’re looking for Secondary School teachers within Ireland that are into gaming and esports, know any? If you do please send them our way 🙋🏼‍♂️

METRICS

The following metrics are for the period of 1-30 November 2024:

COMING UP

Take a look at what we've got coming up:

📅 6-8 Dec - Ireland Esports Collegiate Winter Semester Finals Weekend Online and @ Dogpatch Labs (get your tickets here)

📅 9 Dec - Spring Registrations open for the Ireland Esports Collegiate Series which starts on Monday 10 February!

📅 25 Dec - Merry Christmas to you all 🎄

Thanks for reading, now’s the important part - we’ve opened up subscriptions to this newsletter, we’re really keen to start building up this business community so PLEASE share with your friends and family.

Regards,

Kurt & the Nativz Gaming Team

OFFICIAL PARTNERS OF NATIVZ GAMING