KANSAS CITY, MO (August 5, 2020) — Generation Esports (GenE) — a global community-focused esports organization and tournament platform — today announced the launch of the High School Esports League (HSEL) in Australia and New Zealand, expanding North America’s largest competitive gaming organization for high schools into Southwest Pacific territories. Following the same charter as GenE’s existing student leagues in North America, the newly launched High School Esports League in Australia and New Zealand (HSELANZ) will engage students through organized competition and provide beneficial academic opportunities. The HSELANZ officially kicks off in the winter semester with the HSELANZ Winter Major esports tournament.
Beginning August 24, 2020, the HSELANZ Winter Major is a four-week long varsity esports competition where Australian and New Zealander high school esports clubs can compete against their peers in four popular multiplayer online video games — Fortnite, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Valorant, and Clash Royale. The HSELANZ Winter Major tournament is completely free, and winning teams will have free entry to the Summer Season.
“With the start of each new school year, we challenge ourselves to find new ways to engage students through esports,” said Mason Mullenioux, co-founder and CEO of Generation Esports. “After cementing HSEL as North America’s largest high school esports organization, a feat we are immensely proud of, we are excited to announce this new chapter for the league which will give students in Australia and New Zealand access to our competitive platform and various academic resources. We can’t wait to get started!
“What we bring to Australia and New Zealand is a proven educational program that embraces students’ passion for video games and shapes it into an understanding of the esports industry,” said Hugo Diegues, Representative of Generation Esports in Australia and New Zealand. “Our aim is not to encourage students to leave the classroom but to entice them to enhance their academic learning with the addition of a gaming class that may be utilized by those wishing to pursue a career in the industry.”
Thanks to the innovative technologies that power Generation Esports’ tournament platform, competitors of the HSELANZ Winter Major will easily find time-slots and enter queues to arrange gameplay sessions with opponents for remote competitions. Registration for the HSELANZ Winter Major is now open and ends August 22, 2020. Students, teachers/advisors, and existing esports clubs can register their teams at https://www.highschoolesportsleague.com/anz.
Additionally, the Microsoft-backed HSEL Gaming Concepts curriculum — an esports-based curriculum designed to engage students in social-emotional learning (SEL) and digital citizenship through the lens of video games and esports — will be made available to high schools in Australia and New Zealand. Developed by Dr. Kristy Custer and Michael Russell from Complete High School Maize in Kansas, wherever the HSEL Gaming Concepts curriculum was implemented in North America, high school students 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, particularly in an academic setting.
Pricing for high schools interested in joining HSELANZ will begin at just $55 AU/ $59 NZ per student per tournament, with weekly tournaments to all students. Annual packages are available that include additional perks and offer greater value for growing programs. Preseason tournaments will be offered free to all high schools to try out the platform and experience esports at their school.
To learn more about HSEL, please visit https://www.highschoolesportsleague.com/anz.
A press kit with logos, photos, and videos is available here https://uberstrategist.link/GenerationEsports-PressKit.
For the latest news and updates from Generation Esports, like the organization on Facebook at https://facebook.com/joingenesports and follow on Twitter @joingenesports and Instagram. Fans can also join the official GenE Discord and subscribe on YouTube and at Twitch.tv/GenerationEsports.
About Generation Esports
Created by the founders of High School Esports League (HSEL) — the largest and longest-running competitive gaming organization for high school students in the United States — Generation Esports (GenE) serves communities across the world that wish to better engage today’s youth. GenE believes that esports is more than just video games; it’s competition, community, engagement, and relationship building. With over 3,000 partnered schools and 85,000 participating students within its HSEL alone, GenE makes it easy for communities of all backgrounds and ages to offer competitive esport experiences to their members. To learn more, visit https://generationesports.com.
