The operations team is the lifeline of any event. Without the hard work of these individuals, there’d be no game to play, no show to cast, no event to organize, and no fans to cheer. It may be a thankless job at times, but someone’s got to make the trains run on time. Here are some projects to help prepare you for running your first esports event.
No matter how well run or skilled an operations staff are, they can’t work as one unit without a gameplan. In the world of esports tournaments, your rule book is your tournament’s gameplan and guidelines. Thankfully, you won’t be starting from scratch here. Thanks to all the research you’ve done, you should already be familiar with common formats and procedures for esports events. Along with this, any tournaments your team is playing in should also have their own rulebooks to draw inspiration from. Failing that, most professional esports competitions will have their rulebooks available to the public. Here are a few sections to include in your rulebook:
Event Format
Sign-up Procedure
Match Rules
Player self-broadcasting rights and rules
Pre/Post Game Procedures
How disputes will be handled
Admin Contact Info
Sportsmanship/Player Conduct
This is just a rough guideline of things to keep in mind when developing your own rulebook. Once you’ve completed your first draft, utilize your esports team’s players and staff by asking them to review the rulebook. Once those checks and updates are completed, share the rulebook with the competitors, and provide time before the event so they can give feedback.
Being open to feedback and being willing to make changes are important aspects of any operations team, but be aware that once the event starts, it is best to limit any further changes to the rulebook. If an emergency forces you to make a change, be sure to engage the competitors in the discourse as quickly as possible to preserve the competitive integrity of the event.
Your students don’t have to write an exact, legally binding rulebook for your tournament, as that can land them in trouble if they don’t fully grasp what they’re doing. The rulebook should be a collaborative effort between students and faculty. Try to work with your school’s athletics department for applicable examples of competition rules.
Once you’ve completed your rulebook, you’ll need to figure out how many teams/competitors you’ll be hosting. Usually, the game you choose to feature at your event will inform the number of competitors you’ll have. You need at least four teams or competitors to get a proper bracket going, but having too many competitors can drag tournaments out and increase the likelihood that something goes wrong.
Creating a system for competitors to sign up for your tournament is as simple as creating a Google Form. We’ll link a sample form below as a template, but make sure your sign up form has the following information:
Player Real Name
Player Gamertag (for team events, ask for the team name and the captain’s tag, or for another primary point of contact, like a coach)
Discord Username (Example#0000)
Email Address (for team events, the primary point of contact’s email)
In Unit 3, Chapter 4, Section 2 aka Entering High School Leagues, we discussed different kinds of competitive brackets. Refer back to that section for an overview of the different kinds of commonly used bracket types in esports tournaments. Consider which format works best for your school, the number of competitors attending, and your budget/time restrictions. For example, if you have 32 competitors, and matches take 30 minutes, do not schedule a double-elimination bracket to happen all in one day.
The more games that are played, the more time your tournament will take. Tournaments can have multiple teams playing at the same time to expedite the bracket, with there being one “center stage” match on broadcast, but that excludes some teams from getting camera time. However, teams can be frustrated if their tournament experience is playing only one match in a single-elimination bracket and getting eliminated immediately. A standard for esports competitions is to hold best-of-three matches throughout the tournament until the finals, which then become best-of-five. This is not by any means a strict rule you must follow; make sure you research the tournament norms for your chosen game. Consider adding an extra day of competition if you want to feature a large number of teams.
Use online resources like smash.gg Tournament Management, Challonge Tournament Management, or Battlefy Tournament Management to easily create and manage your bracket for gameday.
By developing the rulebook, we created our gameplan for managing the competition side of the event. By developing an Event Schedule, we create our gameplan for both the competitor and spectator sides of the event. One of the greatest challenges Operations teams face during events is the ever-looming threat of the clock. Events outside of your control can ruin your well-constructed plans, like when a match you thought would take 30 minutes takes 2 hours or a similar instance of random chaos occurs. Things like this happen all the time, throughout every level of esports competition from amateur to professional. By creating, testing, and refining our schedule well ahead of time, you can be ready for these problems and potentially avoid issues that could interfere with gameday.
While it is a seemingly simple step, a lot goes into developing the event schedule. Start off with the brainstorming list from the research section. If this list does not exist yet, head back and do some research so you can start workshopping your ideas. Once that list exists, start estimating how long each piece will take, and how long you expect each game and intermission to last. Be sure to consult with players, coaches, and anyone else with experience for help here. After the estimates are done, start piecing together the schedule. Make multiple plans so you have a backup if certain events go longer or shorter than expected. Here are some additional rules to follow while planning:
Account for every “Best Of” series to go the full length. For example, if you have a best-of-three series, assume it will go to three games in your planning.
Provide players time to rest between games of a series. Give competitors between 30 minutes and an hour of rest, but try not to exceed that time.
Be prepared with backup plans if games start running long. Have emergency plans in-place before rounds start in the event something goes wrong.
As useful as predicting and estimating may be, there is no replacement for testing. As the operations team, there are many aspects of the event that we can test with a proper test run event. Here are some areas we can focus on:
Match times: Have mock teams run through matches with tournament rules to see what the average game times are.
Team Logistics: How long do teams need to get on/off stage or prepare for certain matches?
Spectator Experience: Is the event easy to watch? Are there adequate times for fans to refresh between games?
Technical Issues: Are all the players on stable internet? Are any of the computers in need of repair/upgrade?
A test run is your team’s chance to iron out all the kinks in the event plan before the actual event. Expect things to go wrong and make time for meetings afterward. Remember, every issue found now is one less issue to worry about on the day of the actual event.