/01 TNL: There has been a lot of activity in the collegiate eSports space but very little at the high school level. What do you see in this opportunity?

TS: EGF started with a basic mission - build the next generation of the NCAA for eSports. In almost every conversation we've had with a college, high school comes up, and often the context of what a college can do around their local community or how esports can help them recruit the next generation of students so this was just a natural evolution.

For us, high school has always been a part of our development roadmap, it's just happening faster than I could've predicted because of the amazing partners we've found.

We take a lot of inspiration from traditional sports and when you compare eSports to the current sports infrastructure, we're still a ways away from that level of stability but we're excited to help build it.

/02 TNL: What does the partnership with Connecticut entail and why were they first?

TS: We started working with teachers from Connecticut in the first part of 2016. As we got more involved, we made the decision to extend the operations we'd developed with our collegiate league to high schools. After working together on several local tournaments, we ran a pilot season in the Spring of 2017 and that ultimately lead to our partnership with the state.

Connecticut provides a unique environment to start this in because of the diversity of circumstance in a relatively small geographic area. For example, there's a wide range of socioeconomic status represented in Connecticut and one of our national goals is to make esports accessible to every student who wants to participate. We'll have the opportunity to experiment with potential solutions to a wide range of challenges in Connecticut that we hope we'll be able to employ in other states and countries as they join EGFH.

/03 TNL: How important is it that this is an “official league” with administrative backing?

TS:I think it's incredibly important. Administrative buy-in means you can make continuous progress towards what eSports can become without having to start over every four years when a student graduates. I truly believe that eSports and gaming in general can be an incredibly powerful platform to bring together communities from all over the world and provide incredible opportunities to people - but it's difficult to build on shifting sands.