Recently, the student eSports scene in the United States has seen some significant growth. TeSPA, a collegiate eSports organization and a partner with Blizzard Entertainment, operates major tournaments such as Heroes of the Dome, while Collegiate Starleague (CSL) also organizes various eSports events for League of Legends, Dota 2, and Overwatch. As such, people are already familiar with collegiate eSports leagues, but that begs the question; What about high school eSports?

For other professional sports, it’s a natural progression from little league to high school and college to professional level. However, high school eSports leagues are quite a novel concept to many. While it is essential to build a sound ecosystem for any sport to prosper, it can be a very daunting task.

Fortunately, there are those who are pioneering high school eSports in the United States: the High School eSports League (HSEL). Just last season, the organization hosted a high school league with around 6,000 participants. HSEL holds competitions for League of Legends, Overwatch, and CS: GO every semester, and recently started to work with colleges to provide scholarship opportunities at select schools.

We interviewed the organization’s founder Mason Mullenioux, to hear about his endeavors as well as the stories we did not yet know about HSEL.

Can you give us a brief overview of the HSEL and HSEL League of legends competition?

HSEL is a competitive gaming league catered towards high school cyber athletes. Students participate in a season, just as with traditional sports. This consists of a 4-6 week regular season, with the top teams from each group advancing into a playoff stage.

I am curious about the scale and details of the HSL league. How many players participated in it? How about viewers? 

Over 6,000 players participated in the last HSEL tournament. Viewership is also growing at a record-breaking level. In fact, student participation has grown by 292% from the previous year.

What was the reason you started to be interested in the High School eSports league, even though it was not popular?

This originates from our experiences when we attended high school. We wanted to play traditional sports, but could not make the teams. We were always very skilled and interested in gaming, and wished there was competitive gaming in our schools. When we first decided to pursue creating the league, we could see that the trends in the current market were only going up, and firmly believed they would continue.

Most parents seem to dislike it when their children play video games too much. There might be some difficulties in running this scholarship program from now on. Can you tell me some stories like that and how you overcame them?

The current generation of parents all grew up around video games, so this hasn’t been a major issue for us. But when we get an occasional email or question about the benefits, we usually send them links to studies that reassure them gaming isn’t a waste of time. We are continuing to gain support in this argument as eSports continues to grow and become a career opportunity, and scholarships become the norm.

Many colleges are now trying to strengthen eSports fields with their own scholarship programs. How about in high schools? What kind of strategy do they have in order to broaden the eSports scene?

This is something that will come in time. My best prediction is that after it is solidified in the College space, more high schools will set aside funding for an official eSports team. We are currently seeing a spike in officially recognized eSports clubs in high schools. Of our clubs, 25% are funded directly, which has gone up 4% from last year. To become recognized as varsity, eSports will all have to be pushed through the various high school athletics associations in each state, which we foresee as the biggest challenge.

Could you explain what high-school student gamers are like in NA? What characteristics do eSports audiences have? What could attract their attention?

The main characteristic of a high school eSports participant would have to be STEM(science technology engineering mathematics) fields. They are attracted to the idea that they can do something they love and have a passion for while being recognized by their peers and parents.

HSL is focused on League of Legends, do you have any plans to operate HSL with other games in the future such as Overwatch or CS:GO?

We will provide our community with leagues for any game, as long as there is a demand for it. This is about them, after all. Currently we are running LoL, Overwatch, and CS:GO with plans to add more games next semester.

Compared to collegiate leagues, I think that the number of students might be a little thin. Do you have a plan to secure more students and to make a better league later?

Collegiate leagues have had a couple more years to solidify a foundation. That being said, the high school market is much larger than the college market, in terms of number of students. We have a new platform launching early Spring, and will be utilizing a much more robust social media marketing campaign going forward.

HSL has recently participated in various activities, such as offering a winner a scholarship partnership with universities. Are there plans to further link with collegiate eSports?

This semester, we are offering the winning teams from LoL and Overwatch partial scholarships to Lourdes University. Additionally, we are in the process of partnering with the NACE (National Association of Collegiate eSports), who have announced 22 member schools offering scholarships, with at least 40 more expected in 2017. We believe this partnership is the key to a clear path from high school to college for youth gamers.

Any messages to those who are interested in HSEL? 

If you look at viewership numbers, the popularity is exploding, and the trend continues to break records. Speaking for ourselves only, our current growth rate is 292% for student participants. We believe any student interested in eSports would sign up for our league if they knew it existed, the problem is getting the word out, which Inven Global is so kindly assisting us with!