MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) – Starting this October, Minnesota high schools will have a chance to participate in an official Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) pilot program for e-sports.
The Minnesota State University, Mankato e-sports team, Maverick E-Sports, said it is a big step forward for e-sports in the state, which at the high school level, previously only had grass roots tournaments.
The pilot program will launch with nine e-sports titles including: Rocket League, Marvel Rivals, League of Legends, VALORANT, Fortnite, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Mario Kart, Chess and Minecraft Bedwars.
Levi Arnett, the head coach of Maverick E-Sports, said e-sports can be a great way for students of all ages to learn leadership and teamwork.
With an official MSHSL backed tournament, the MSU team hopes the sport can become more accessible to schools and make it easier for college teams to recruit talent and create scholarship programs, like MSU’s $2,000 dollar merit scholarship for players from underrepresented backgrounds.
“It means we can start to look inwards in our local communities and schools in Minnesota to recruit some of these students, whereas before it was a lot harder to find some of these students. They came from small niches or came to us out of interest,” Arnett said.
The MSU e-sports program currently competes in 10 games including: Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike 2, Deadlock, iRacing, League of Legends, Marvel Rivals, Overwatch 2, Rainbow Six Siege, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and VALORANT.
80 Minnesota schools committed to participate in the high school pilot league when it was announced back in June. Registration for the season opens October 26.
The first season is expected to wrap up on March 21 at Saint Cloud State University.
Click here to download the KEYC News Now app or our KEYC First Alert weather app.
Copyright 2026 KEYC. All rights reserved.