Daniel Rios is an ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism student covering Phoenix Country Day School for AzPreps365.com.

With esports bloomed with interest over the past couple of years. The high school scene has started to develop within Arizona. A main goal with a scene like this is to progress to development and scene in the association’s members school. 

With esports being so new, it can be tough to organize everything and determine divisions that schools should be in.  The AIA knew they needed to help out players and coaches, somehow to make everything run more smoothly. 

“Working with our AIA Esports Advisory Committee, we wanted to find a partner that could better support our coaches and provide a seamless experience for all involved,” AIA Chief Business Development Officer Brian Bolitho said. 

The main goal along with making it easier for teams was to grow the overall participation within school and esports in Arizona. That all became possible when Playfly esports and the AIA entered a partnership that has lasted for the past couple of years. 

Playfly esports oversees one of the biggest collegiate esports leagues in the country, with the NACE starleague. The league has over 650 colleges within it and helps every college  showcase their skills on a national level. Now they partner here in Arizona to hopefully let high school student-athletes show their skills. 

“It has become a lot easier from an organization and scheduling perspective,” Phoenix Country Day esports director Chase McVey said. “The online portal for esports looks and works great, and the support personnel are always on the ball.”

With this partnership one of the biggest things the AIA looked for in a company was their ability to integrate with their existing website platform. Now after a couple years into the partnership, that integration and simplicity has been brought to the AIA esports website.

When schools sign up and pay the $1800 entry fee they will be able to compete in three games. Rocket League, Super Smash Bros and League of Legends. For each of the games they’ll have a 11-week regular season in the spring followed by a postseason tournament for each game that will take place in the spring only. Teams can play in the fall but it will only be exhibition matches. 

“The school marks off their intent to participate with us,” Bolitho said. “They would then register through the AIA Esports website set up through Playfly esports. Once set up, Playfly handles all the back end technical infrastructure to run the games on gameday, set schedules, collect results, etc.”

With all the factors listed above, the partnership has been successful for the first two years. The AIA has no regrets and has been happy overall with the growth of esports within the high schools. This year the league got over 100 teams to sign up, the most in the five-year history. 

Even with the success that has been shown with the partnership, did the schools think it was necessary in the first place? With the amount of organization and manpower needed to run the divisions it was messy beforehand, but teams are happy with the organization playfly has brought. 

“I think it is necessary based on the man hours it takes to run the brackets, league info, seeding, troubleshooting, etc,” McVey said. 

Every partnership and league can always improve. As a coach and director for a team in the leagues, McVey has experienced the league as a competitor. Regardless of success, improvements can always be made, and McVey has some thoughts on how the leagues can be improved.

“A goal for the future of the league is to start collecting data for divisions,” McVey said. “We are in a very very strong group (which I think was randomly assigned) in Rocket League which makes it hard to make the playoffs if it is based on top cuts. They could spread out the strong schools so that there aren't 4 of the best teams in the state in one group.”

The partnership is expected to end after next year. Bolitho fully expects them to be able to renew the partnership, and he anticipates that it will continue beyond next year. In terms of esports in general the scene has grown tremendously like mentioned above. Bolitho is excited to see what the future has in store, but one thing he knows for certain, needs to happen. 

“Continuing to grow,” Bolitho said. “A lot will depend on opportunities for new games to be played, and keeping that interest level up.”