The founders of the popular High School Esports League are bringing the action to middle schools this fall, with a new tournament league and esports resources! Generation Esports revealed the first Middle School Major is going to begin in the fall semester, thanks to their incredible esports platform. That’s right, the Middle School Esports League Fall Major esports tournament kicks off in September!

Generation Esports is well-known for its high school tournaments. We recently announced they would bring the action to the middle school esports scene as well. The first major activity for the MSEL is going to be the MSEL Fall Major. The MSEL is going to try and harness the middle school students’ passion for gaming, while also offering academic opportunities for them.

This is done through organized competition, creating moments of teamwork, communication, and other useful academic skills. We’re glad to see that Generation Esports will start this eight-week long esports competition on Sept. 21. If you’re a middle school student in an esports club in North America, you can compete against your peers across the continent.

What’s in it for the students though? Winning teams will secure gaming hardware for their schools, such as Nintendo Switch consoles. It will be easy to find time slots for the Fall Major courtesy of Generation Esports tried-and-true tournament platform, so they can easily find the time to do battle with their opponents.

For middle schools new to the platform, there will be Fortnite tournaments offered for free, so that schools can try the MSEL platform out and see what it does for their school. The full list of tournaments is decent though!

• Minecraft
• Rocket League
• Fortnite
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
• Just Dance 2020
• Mario Kart 8 DX

Should you wish to enter the tournament (or know someone who would be keen to try), you can click this link to register a team.

“We are very excited to carry over all of our accomplishments and learnings from operating North America’s largest high school esports organization and offer middle school students the same opportunities,” said Mason Mullenioux, CEO and co-founder of Generation Esports. “Whether students are eying a professional esports career or just love playing video games, the Middle School Esports League will help students excel not only in organized competition, but academically — creating opportunities to improve their skills, grades, and future prospects.”

On the topic of education, a new esports-based curriculum for middle school students was developed by Dr. Kristy Custer and Michael Russel from Complete High School Maize in Kansas. Those two names may be familiar. They are the educators behind the Microsoft-backed HSEL Gaming Concepts curriculum used in high schools. It turns the passion students have for video games into academic success, which is very important.

This new system ought to be arriving in the near future, so that middle school students will learn to engage in social-emotional learning, and digital citizenship through the lens of gaming and esports. One of the big takeaways is that gaming and esports sure have a lot of toxic, foul people. If people can be taught at a young age that these ways of communication are unnecessary, we can improve our sport.

Where implemented, high school students who took the HSEL Gaming Concepts course saw an average of 1.4 points of GPA improvement and 95 percent or better attendance — strong evidence of the positive impact video games and organized esports can have on students’ lives, especially in an academic setting.

“Middle school is often the time when school becomes challenging not only academically, but also socially for students,” said Michael Russel, co-creator of the HSEL Gaming Concepts system. “All of a sudden students no longer have one teacher and a built-in group of friends that they spend their days within the classroom. So many students struggle to find where they belong. The new curriculum will help middle school teachers bring esports into their classrooms where they can implement purposeful play with the social-emotional learning and digital citizenship that is so desperately needed.”

Pricing for the MSEL is $20 for students per tournament. The Fortnite tournaments will still be free for all students. There are annual packages available that include other perks and are cheaper for growing programs. Title 1 schools who want to fundraise for league fees/esports equipment, Generation Esports does facilitate financial assistance through STEM grants and partnerships with non-profit Varsity Esports Foundation (and their fundraising service partner, FundMyTeam).

Younger students aren’t always keen to learn and grow as people. Disguising/cloaking valuable life lessons in the guise of gaming and esports will certainly help though. It teaches incredible life lessons and skills that these kids will take with them far beyond middle school. So, we’re very excited to see the Middle School Fall Major from Generation Esports.