Welcome to the latest instalment of MLE Monthly Insight; an in-depth look behind the scenes at the different areas of MLE. In these articles we will look to give you, the community a peep behind the scenes, to see what’s happening and potentially what’s coming. With playoffs literally just around the corner it’s been a busy time behind the scenes so what’s been going on? Let’s find out…

Community

With franchise logo reveals now well underway, there were two community surveys published to gauge community reaction to 10 of the revealed logos. We received a decent number of responses to both surveys, though the more feedback we get the better perspective we have of community opinion. Generally the consensus on the logos revealed so far has been positive, with a few caveats, which we will touch upon.

So how were the last 10 logos revealed received?

From the infographic there’s clearly one “anomaly” in comparison to the rest of the logos. The Spectre, Spartans and Bulls logos were all well received, with strong positive like to dislike ratios. In particular the Spartans, which no one ranked below 3. The only main criticism of the Spartans logo was the “mane”, which some people felt went too far around the helmet. The Bulls logo received a fair amount of praise for its shading and use of colours but there was some uncertainty regarding the “white circle backdrop”. The Spectre logo was commended for its design and use of colours though there were some who felt a different design would have suited the franchise more.

The one “anomaly” in the pack was the Flames logo. Before the logo was revealed we had a hunch that the logo may divide opinion due to it’s relatively minimalistic nature. It appears from the feedback that the simplicity of the logo was the main criticism, with lack of shading and detail cited. It’s clear the logo didn’t meet a number of people’s expectations and we are reviewing the possibility of changes.

The Eclipse, Hawks, Hive and Wizards also had their logos revealed this past month, let’s see what the community had to say about them?

As with the previous four logos the reception was generally positive. The Hawks logo was complimented for its design and detail with people stating the Hawk looked fierce and aggressive. One of the main points of contention raised was the general size/proportion of the logo due to its width. The Wizards logo, with a like to dislike ratio of 7.6 to 1, was praised for its general design and its “relatability” to the franchise. A few people felt the secondary colour of the franchise, yellow, could have been incorporated more into the logo. The Hive divided opinion somewhat, with the design being the focal point for divide in opinion. A number of people liked the angular design and sharp edges but there was some criticism of the use of red in the logo. Lastly the Eclipse is one that has split opinion right down the middle with a 1-1 like to dislike ratio. Majority of people felt the colour scheme gave the logo a clean and bold look. The main issue a number of people had was with association and relatability. A portion of people felt the logo didn’t symbolise what they expect when thinking of Eclipse.

Lastly the Sabres and Express also received new logos…

The Express received the honour of joining the Spartans in receiving no “dislikes” (i.e. a rating of 1 or 2). The main compliments of the logo were the level detail of the use of colours. There was a proportion of people who felt the steam wasn’t necessary or could be reduced but there were no common complaints regarding the logo. The Sabres was also generally well received, with people liking the general design however there was a common theme regarding certain changes such as incorporating white fur to increase association with Sabretooth tigers. The nose was also a contentious point of the design, with a proportion of people feeling it didn’t look right.

Overall the feedback to logos has been generally positive so far. We will discuss the design of each logo a little bit more in-depth in the media section. As many in the community will be aware after recent discussions and a community poll, we have decided to change tact in terms of revealing logos. We had been revealing a few each week on stream. However with playoffs starting next week (9th May) there was a desire, especially from a Broadcast perspective, to have all the franchise logos ready to use come the start of the playoffs. With this in mind we will be broadcasting a special reveal stream this Friday (time tbc) on the MLE Network.

Of course the Community the team has been busy elsewhere. Admissions continue to run smoothly and the team are gearing up for the inevitable increase in applications that come with the playoffs. Below are admissions stats for the month of April. Big GGs to the admissions team for bringing in fresh meat to the community!

Recently, the Events team has still been attempting to rebuild and improve event player numbers. The team are planning on utilizing the off-season survey to hear community suggestions on the future of MLE Events. Two events are currently being planned for the playoffs. The first is another Crew Battles event and we hope to put on a Call of Duty Warzone competition event. More info on these will be released soon. The team are confident that with the feedback from the community on this seasons off-season survey that they can bring enjoyable events for everyone.

The Power Rankings Committee, with the assistance of  a couple of community members, are working on a community feature to be run during the playoffs. The feature is hoped to bring an extra level of interest and engagement into every playoff series. More details will be released this week once the idea has been finalised.

LEAGUE OPERATIONS

It’s been largely business as usual for League Operations this past month, ensuring things run smoothly and rules around league play are enforced appropriately. Focus obviously has now turned to playoffs and ensuring everything is set from a League Operations perspective. The League Ops team have compiled a Playoff document that will provide useful information for players and teams. This will be released within the next day.

BROADCAST

It’s been exciting times in the Broadcast department. As the team start to get pumped up for the playoffs, there have been several improvements to Broadcast operations and output. Behind the scenes we have recently invested in VMIX. VMIX allows for greater flexibility and efficiency when it comes to running broadcasts and will allow us to take our broadcasts to new heights. This investment wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our great community!

On screen you will hopefully have been seeing some of the improvements the team have been working on. One in particular we are very happy with is the implementation of player stats during series. See the clip below from the Blizzard vs Hurricanes Foundation League series to see it in action!

The Broadcast team are continually working to implement extra features that improve the quality and presentation of streams. There’s lots more in-store for broadcasts for the future! The team feel there have great strides made this season and there are some “massive projects” in the works for next season.

In the nearer future Broadcast are working with Media team to ensure all franchise logos are incorporated into assets for the playoffs. Don’t forget we will have a special stream this Friday showing off the remaining logos yet to be revealed!

We hope these improvements will create greater engagement with streams and in tandem, increase viewing figures. There was a small increase in viewing figures during April compared to previous months. We hit a new peak for maximum viewers for the season and the average number of viewers for the month was up on the seasonal average.

Those figures don’t take into account the week 10 viewing figures, which saw a strong increase in viewing figures, with a new peak viewership achieved of 225 and an average viewing figures of well above 100 for the weekend. These figures also don’t take into account those who tuned into mlesportsgg2 over the weekend. Broadcast hope to utilise mlesportsgg2 much more frequently next season. We would like to take this moment to thank everyone for their support by tuning into streams, the support has been amazing!

Lastly here’s a look at some of the scheduling distribution stats. These stats include week 10 streams. All franchises were broadcasted at least once, with 27 out of the 32 franchises broadcast at least 3 times during the season. In total, 70.31% of teams were broadcast this season. We are relatively happy with the spread over the course of the season but realise there are a few gaps. We are looking to make significant changes to scheduling and series distribution for next season to allow for a more “even spread”.

And lastly, while Broadcast is focused on providing the best experience possible during the playoffs, the wheels are already in motion for Season 11. The team are always on the look out for new talent and support. If you fancy our hand at casting or broadcasting or perhaps supporting the team behind the scenes, feel free to reach out to one of the Broadcast “heads” about getting involved. The team are committed to supporting and developing talent, so don’t worry if you haven’t had much experience.

MEDIA

With the regular season drawing to conclusion the media team have been concentrating majority of their effort on playoff assets. We are looking to make this Seasons playoffs the “best looking” yet and a number of assets are currently in production that will be revealed on streams, website, social media, etc. over the course of the playoffs. To wet your appetites and provide a sneak peek, check the tab below here for a preview of “Road to Champion Series” graphic. These graphics will show each team in the playoffs “route” to the playoffs… and maybe Championship Series!

Road to Championship Series graphic

As promised, let’s take a deeper dive into the recently revealed franchise logos mentioned earlier. Our objective with the franchise logos was for a relatively clean style that erred more to a relative simplistic but focused look. One that would give each franchise a clear and unique image but one that fit in with the overall presentation of MLE.

In last months insight we went into some detail regards Spectre and Flames logo. Our own opinions and thoughts regarding Spectre logo have not changed and the feedback from the survey cemented those thoughts. The Flames however has seen a fair amount of discussion since the release and reception of the feedback from surveys. While we generally don’t want to make any drastic changes to many if any of the logos revealed we are not wholly opposed to changes if we feel necessary. Based on the feedback of the Flames logo we are looking into possible changes, however at this moment there is nothing concrete to announce.

The Spartans logo was pretty much an instantaneous hit upon first reveal. The design we felt while immediately obvious, was strong and bold. The logo did undergo one small alteration before being finalised to the logo that was revealed to the community. In the first draft of the logo the mane had a white “tip” that curved around part of top of the main. We felt this detail wasn’t necessary and also the extra colour didn’t fit with the overall design of the logo.

The Bulls logo was one logo that actually underwent a major redesign. The first draft of the logo was a “head on shot” of a Bulls head. While the logo wasn’t bad it was generally perceived to be not in keeping with our design and presentation objectives and requirements. One of the main criticisms was it felt a bit generic and aped a “Texan” aesthetic. The designer went back to the drawing board and came up with the current design, which met our expectations. One aspect we really like and think is key a component of the new logo is the sense of motion/charging, making it more dynamic than the previous design.

The Hawks logo underwent a few changes from its first draft. Those changes being the inclusion of white (the white eyes in the first draft are actually transparent) and the double outline. We felt the outline and the inclusion of white gave the logo more pop, helping to define its features such as the feathers and talons. These changes we felt improved the logo considerably. There were some concerns on the size, particularly the width of the logo however we feel it can be incorporated into MLE. This logo is one that has grown on TheGamingBear (President of MLE) considerably over time, “fun fact” for you there!

Despite the Eclipse logo receiving mixed feedback, upon being revealed by the designer it was well received. We particularly liked the themes and feel of an Eclipse were present in the logo without being too obvious. While we know the design has split opinion in the community we feel over time a number of people will become more accustomed to it. We expect this to happen with a few of the logos. As they start to be incorporated into the league people will start to associate and relate them to the franchises over time.

The Wizards logo didn’t undergo much change from first draft to final design, with the only change being made in the beard department. The first draft had more “curly” elements to it, which was something we felt didn’t quite look right and the beard was made much smoother and fuller.

The Hive logo made an instant impression on us when first shown by the designer. We felt the design was bold and striking. One element we particularly liked about the Hive logo was the somewhat “honeycomb” inspired outline. There wasn’t really anything we felt needed changing with the Hive logo so the design that was revealed was in fact the first iteration of the design shown to us.

The Sabres logo didn’t undergo any revisions from its first draft. There were some concerns regarding the nose however we felt it gave a “snarling”, fierce look to the logo.

The Express logo did undergo a few changes from its first draft. We felt the first draft provided a good foundation to develop the logo a bit further. We felt the inclusion of steam gave the logo more depth and identity, whilst changing the outline colour gave the logo more definition. Lastly we felt the train element of the logo was a bit too “wide and short” and the shape was adjusted to it’s final design.

MARKETING

In the Marketing department, work has been ongoing to improve promotion on Social Media. It’s likely we will be looking for additional support in this area over the playoffs. Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement.

We will be looking to reinvest some of the revenue generated from different streams (merch, Twitch, etc.) into advertising and promotion going forward, as we feel it will help increase the exposure of MLE.

With the upcoming reveal of the remaining franchise logos, preparation is well underway to incorporate all the franchise logos on the store. All being well products will be available soon after the reveals. We know there has been a continuous interest in jerseys and this is something we are continuing to explore. It’s important we find the right supplier and distributor for such a product therefore it will likely take sometime before we come to a decision, most likely at least a few months. We can’t give any definitive time frames but we are committed to making it happen.

SPONSORSHIP

Not too much to report from a Sponsorship perspective, the team are settling under new guidance from Mobgaz. Emphasis right now is on reaching out to potential sponsors whilst maintaining existing sponsorship relationships. Don’t forget you can get free shipping on any order of BAWLS Guarana by using the promo code “MLE”. Perfect for some refreshment during the playoffs!

We had 3 community PowerA giveaways last month! Each lucky winner the recipient of a Spectra Enhanced Wired controller courtesy of our friends at PowerA. Check out the stats from each giveaway below!

WEBSITE

Over the past month the development team has been working closely with our broadcasting team to brighten up the scoreboard. By using the endpoints available from the website, we can pull in franchise and player data directly into the broadcast. SimpleAOB has been working on a robust control-board application for our casters. The team has also been working on a “Playoffs landing page”. Stay tuned for an announcement later this week. Looking further down the road, the team plan to add player’s salary, rank and other data to each profile.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

April saw a large amount of investment into MLE, most notably the final payments for franchise logos as well as a sizeable investment for broadcast. We are committed to ensuring revenue generated through Twitch, Patreon and merch is reinvested back into the league that improves the quality of our output and also benefits the community as a whole. Now that franchise logos are complete we can focus on other areas such as broadcast, where we can reinvest revenue. The infographic below shows the distribution of revenue reinvested for the season so far.

And that concludes the Monthly Insight for April! It’s been a busy month behind the scenes. We hope you have enjoyed this insight behind the scenes. We strive to make them as informative and interesting as possible. If there is anything you would like to see or hear about please feel free to send your suggestions via the usual formats.

As we enter the Playoffs and concluding weeks of the Season, the excitement grows and we can’t wait to finish the season with a bang! There’s lots in store and we wish all those competing in the playoffs the best of luck. And to those teams and players that didn’t make it we hope you enjoyed the season regardless and are itching for Season 11 to come around. So folks, fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride! It’s destination Season 10 Playoffs!

Thanks for reading,
from everyone at Minor League Esports

Welcome to the latest instalment of MLE Monthly Insight; an in-depth look behind the scenes at the different areas of MLE. In these articles we will look to give you, the community a peep behind the scenes, to see what’s happening and potentially what’s coming. So let’s get to it…

Community

There’s been a fair bit going down on in Community Town this past month. No doubt many of you will have seen some of the surveys going out including the “sentiment survey” and the recent logo survey. Thank you to all those people that have responded to either or both of the surveys. The feedback provided has been very insightful and is helping to structure some of our plans and and shaping our internal discussions.

The sentiment survey has given us some very useful feedback and highlighted areas where we can make improvements. The survey did highlight some concerns, criticisms of the communication regarding logos, which we believe was largely based on communication early on in the process (Season 8 and fair portion of Season 9). We agree communication could have been better during that period but since then we have made continual improvements, especially since the release of the “logo limbo” insight article posted August, 2019.

Segueing into the logo survey, we received a good level response. We will be looking to publish survey for each “batch” of logos revealed. This gives the community a better chance to digest each logo and provide clearer feedback for us. We will “talk” a bit more about the design elements of logos later on in this article under the media section but we wanted to take this opportunity to share general consensus so far.

The general consensus based on the feedback has been generally positive with some great feedback been provided on not only our communication and the logos process but on the logos themselves. We’ve seen a fair amount of conflicting opinions this past week since 6 of the franchise logos were revealed. The infographic below gives an overall summary of general consensus on the first 4 logos revealed, which formed the bulk of the survey.

Looking into the feedback at more detail for each logo revealed some common themes. For the Aviators logo, the community generally liked the simplicity of the logo in particular the clean lines & “wings” element of the logo. A proportion of people were unsure of the A/chevron and a few people were hoping the logo would incorporate a plane or pilot in some form.

The Blizzard logo was the most divisive. People generally liked the level of detail and the colours of logo but the biggest area of contention was with the use of a Yeti for the logo, with a noticeable proportion of people saying they didn’t really associate the image of a Yeti with the franchise.

The Comets logo has received a positive reception with most people liking the simplicity and bright colours of the logo. One notable criticism made was the use of the letter c being used to represent a comet itself.

Lastly the Demolition was the best received out of the 4. People generally agreed the style and design suited the franchise, stating the logo gave the franchise character. The main criticism of the logo is the colour scheme itself.

So that’s a summary of the voting so far. A big thank you to everyone who provided feedback. But what does this feedback mean going forward? Well it’s unlikely to have any immediate and direct changes. While we know there have been contrasting opinions on the logos, some more than others, the general consensus appears to be positive, which we are happy to report. Of course this doesn’t mean these logos can’t or won’t change over time but for the immediate future we want to give them, and those still to be released, time to embed into MLE. As we saw during the MLD era logos did develop and evolve over time and we are always committed to improving where possible. For now though we hope people are enjoying the reveals and we look forward to revealing more over the coming weeks.

Of course Community isn’t just about surveys. One area of MLE that some people may not think about is the admissions process. Our admissions team have been working consistently throughout the season to ensure a steady stream of new faces join the community, so a big welcome to all those that have joined us this past few month. We thought we would use this opportunity to provide some statistics and a brief overview of the process that give an insight into how involved the admissions team are.

The admissions process is essentially split into 3 phases:

• Application: where a person applies to join MLE. Their form is then reviewed & processed by admin team. During this phase the admin team will be looking through all relevant information provided on the form, such as RL tracker, Twitter, Steam account, etc. A decision on whether to approve an application will then be made.
• Interview: after an applicant has been approved and joins the admission server they are then interviewed by a member of MLE admissions team to see if they are a good fit for the community.
• Orientation: after being interviewed, should an applicant be deemed as a good fit they are then invited to an orientation session. Here a member of the admissions team provides important and relevant information to support and help applicants before they join the MLE server.

Hopefully those stats give an indication of the work load of the admissions team as well as the amount of people “coming through the doors”. A big thank you to our admissions team for all their work in keeping a steady stream of new, excitable faces into our community.

LEAGUE OPERATIONS

Not too much from League Operations perspective to report this month. It’s all relatively business as usual as focus is on day-to-day operations such as scheduling, transactions (roster changes, rank ups, etc.) and resolving any issues that arise from competitive action.

There are two points worth noting though. The first being the new ineligibility system, which required rebuilding the database and spreadsheet structure entirely to be able to account for salary on a daily basis. Huge shout out to Peytoneli for his work on this. The second point is the Statistics Team bringing on kcscrag to help with data entry, and Squanchy to rebuild his excellent standings sheet in MLE-form. Expect that to be released in the coming days.

Focus will soon start to turn to playoffs and ensuring everything is in place to ensure as smooth operation as possible. This will include coordinating with broadcast team to determine scheduling responsibilities and ensuring General Managers are aware of the structure and any relevant information they need to know and pass onto their players.

BROADCAST

On a broadcast front improvements are continually being made and we have some exciting things in the works we are looking to bring in the near future that we think will increase the level of production.

This past month we put out a broadcast survey to gauge community opinion on broadcasts. A big thank you to everyone who replied so far, we had over 30 responses to date. For those who put their Twitch ID on the forms the free 100 reward points have been added to your accounts. Here are some of the key figures/results from the survey.

Those are just some of the “key” results from the survey, there’s obviously a fair amount of feedback and ratings provided that we will detail. But a general summary from the survey can be that the results are positive with a few areas of improvement.  Obviously the results are from a small sample of the community but they provide a general indication of thoughts. We know not all 1400 community members watch streams, though we always hope they might :). 30 responses essentially reflects about 30-50% of viewers based on average and peak viewing figures. What’s great to see is nearly 75% of those who completed the survey said they watch 3 or more streams a month. This gives some validity to the results, as the majority of feedback is being provided by those who have more exposure to streams and therefore likely to be able to form stronger opinions.

Stream enjoyment is definitely something we are interested with. We want to make sure people enjoy watching the streams. Simply put, if people do they will likely tune in more. It’s clear though there is a proportion of people who feel we could be doing more to make streams more exciting and we are continually looking at ways to do just that.

Steam promotion is one area, which based on feedback could do with some improvement with the main points being about consistent promotion as well as ensuring broadcast schedule is posted well ahead of time. Ideally we want to have the broadcast schedule out by Friday of each week although there have been a couple of instances where perhaps we have not delivered to this timeframe. Something we will aim to rectify going forward.

Although not shown on the graphic, the survey included a number of questions regarding the presentation of broadcasts. The ratings were positive across the board, “good” counts as a rating of 4/5:
82% rated the quality of graphics at least good or better
87% rated the scoreboard at least good or better
91% rated the scoreboard at least good or better
90% rated the image quality of streams at least good or better
90% rated the smoothness and stability of the action at least good or better

Great results across the board and a true testament to the fantastic work behind the scenes to make our broadcasts look awesome! But we won’t rest on our laurels here, you can be sure we will continually be making improvements over time.

In terms of casting, the response was generally positive as well however a few issues were brought up, which the broadcast team will be looking to address. Primarily there will be even more focus on caster training and development, ensuring budding casters aren’t “thrown into the deep” end too soon. That being said the availability and levels of resource when it comes to broadcasting talent can sometimes be limited. It means we have to give those with perhaps as not much experience a chance. That concludes our look at the broadcast survey, please don’t be afraid to submit more feedback or fill out a form if you haven’t already done so.

Moving on from the survey. We know the broadcast schedule can create some debate and discussion in the community. The majority of franchises and subsequently the teams and players that represent them all hope to feature on stream. From an organisational perspective we try to balance giving each franchise exposure, each of the four leagues coverage and also try to put the best match ups on stream. Before we go into this in more detail let’s look at some stats surrounding broadcast scheduling for the season up till the end of March.

At the end of last month, 75% of franchises (24 out of 32) had featured on stream at least once. During March, 7 of those franchises featured on stream at least once, meaning 96.8% (31 out of 32) franchises have been streamed. The Sabres, the only franchise to have not been streamed, were streamed this weekend (April 4th) so that figure now sits at 100%, which is great, with still 3 weeks of regular season broadcasts left. It’s difficult to ensure an even spread amongst franchises due to the flexibility of our scheduling system, which allows series to be scheduled any time within a set period, Thursday-Saturday, not including “double header series”. The only way to ensure an almost even spread would be to implement hard-scheduling however this would restrict players to only be allowed play at certain times.

We are continually looking at our scheduling system and seeing where improvements can be made. It’s definitely something that will be reviewed in the off-season to see if any improvements can be made that benefit and balance things from an organisational, franchise and player perspective.

Lastly over to viewing figures for March. They were slightly down compared to the rest of the season however we are not too concerned and are confident viewer numbers will pick up going into the business end of league play. Big thank you to anyone who choses to tune into the MLE Network at any point. We appreciate the support and hope you enjoy the content.

MEDIA

Naturally there is a lot of focus on the franchise logos currently as they start to be revealed. So far 6 logos have been revealed: Aviators, Blizzard, Comets, Demolition, Flames & Spectre. Hopefully these logos have given everyone an idea of the general style we have tried to implement. Our vision and objective with the franchise logos was to have clean, relatively simplistic logos that gave each franchise an identity, whilst still feeling part of MLE. We wanted to stray away from the “generic” esports style logos that seem common place, as we felt they don’t really fit in with the identity of MLE. We thought we would take this moment to give a brief insight behind each logo revealed so far. The people involved in MLE hierarchy with the logo process were all Leadership and Council members, including advisors, as well as Goofy (Media coordinator) and Sleegi (Broadcast & Marketing coordinator).

The Aviators logo was the first logo created. This was done back in September 2019. We felt the simplicity of the design was one of the main positives. Not encumbered with too much detail but something straight, clear and bold. The “wing” element and the stylised chevron give the logo that identity and relatability to the Aviators without being directly obvious.

The Blizzard logo took many of us by surprise at first as like many, we didn’t naturally think of a Yeti. That being said it immediately became obvious to us and we could see the relevance. It soon felt like a unique twist, avoiding the trappings of the old snowsept mountain logo. It has divided opinion in the community however we are confident with time it will grow on people.

The Comets logo was one that pretty much was universally liked upon the first design being shown. The bold, bright colours mixed in with the imagery felt a natural fit for the franchise. The logo did undergo a small revision however as the “trail” was much longer and we envisioned this may be problematic for merch, graphics, etc. and so the designer reduced the length of to it’s now current state. For a bit of fun, we have popped the original logo below (behind a spoiler, what teases!)

reveal logo

original Comets logo

The Demolition logo was also well received upon being shown to us by the designer. We felt the mischievous look of the logo felt in keeping with the Demolition franchise, one that is associated with a bit of craziness and mayhem.

The Spectre logo, revealed this past weekend, dubbed “lil’ spooky boi”, was also generally well received. We all felt the logo had personality and seemed to fit the identity of the franchise; spooky but with a hint of playfulness that avoided the logo being too “dark” and out of touch with the overall presentational style.

Spectre logo

Spectre logo

The Flames logo, revealed on last night’s stream, was one of the more divisive logos amongst those of us involved in the process. Some of us really liked the simplicity and the fact the flames were stylised to look like an F, while others felt perhaps it needed more detail. We decided to keep the logo as it was for the time being. Throughout the process we have been conscious about time and we wanted to ensure time wasn’t being wasted “perfecting” a logo, when that time could have been used to start/develop others. Of course this doesn’t mean we said yes to every 1st draft going, the Flames was one of the logos which did undergo a slight tweak, which saw the Flames being made thicker.

Flames logo

Flames logo

After revealing these logos we have had many questions, enquiries, etc. around the whole logo design process, especially from the survey. If you have not seen it already a new channel, #logo-faq, has been created in the Discord server to answer some of the common questions asked. Hopefully this provides more clarity to the process and giving an extra level of detail to it. Don’t forget all logo reveals can be viewed on YouTube too!

Lastly we have seen some misinformation stated regarding the cost of logos. Previously we have held back discussing this however now that logos are starting to be revealed we know feel it’s the right time to offer some insight to this. Both designers we are working with offered very attractive and fair rates, which worked out at $62.50 per logo. Simple maths $62.50 x 32 is $2000. We are very happy with the quality of output in relation to the cost of production, especially considering some quotes we received while researching were 2-3 times higher than this. We would like to take this moment to thank both designers for their efforts and are looking forward to giving them the acknowledgement and respect once all 32 are revealed.

On the subject of revealing the logos we are currently revealing two a week, one at the end of every stream. We are hoping to increase this rate with a view to having all 32 released by the Championship series, though this is dependant on time and resource available. Regardless of if we can make that target, all 32 logos will be ready to go (barring any unforeseen circumstances) for Season 11.

Of course Media isn’t all about logos. The team have been working as always to ensure weekly tasks are completed and focus is now starting to shift towards playoffs. Behind the scenes Goofy is in coordination with Broadcast to bring some exciting things to stream, which we hope to bring to you in the near future. There is also a focus to automate some assets to allow for more efficient processes and working. This last week the Conference standings graphics you see on screen can now be automatically filled with the relevant stats, saving time and resource that can be spent improving elements. Big thanks to AOB for his work on making that happen.

MARKETING

It’s relatively quiet in terms of Marketing the team are currently looking towards playoffs and beyond in terms of plans. We are also reviewing our Social media interactivity and processes around it. The aim is to create a more streamlined and productive way of working, which will help us be more consistent in our promotion and activity on Social Media.

On the merch side of things the store saw a very quiet month with only 1 sale. This was to be predicted somewhat as new logos start to roll into town, there’s no doubt people will be waiting for these to be released before purchasing merch. We are hoping to add some new designs in the meantime however so keep your eyes peeled for further news on that. Unfortunately due to current coronavirus pandemic, Spreadshirt has stopped promotions (i.e. sale periods) for the foreseeable future. This is to ensure they can meet demand while also ensuring safe-working. More information can be found here.

SPONSORSHIP

There has been a change in the Sponsorship team. Therealmobagz (yup not that fake one) has recently come on board as the new Sponsorship Coordinator taking over from Scoobert. We would like to take this moment to say thank you to Scoobert for all his work and effort during his time as Sponsorship Coordinator. Mobagz has been on the team for a while and we have full confidence he will help lead and direct the Sponsorship team.

Things have been inevitably quiet for Sponsorship whilst the change took place. The main priority for the team during this time is to maintain existing relationships and ensure any agreements are suitably met and delivered.

There was just one PowerA giveaway last month due to the bye week. VoidRL was the lucky community member who won themselves an awesome Spectra Enhanced Wired Xbox One controller. Due to the changes in the Sponsorship team there was a delay on sending out the controllers but they will soon start to be sent out to winners. We still have more PowerA giveaways coming, with 4 more Spectra controllers to give away over the course of the regular season! Congratulations to Atokad, who won this weekends giveaway!

WEBSITE

Our website is a key component of league for many reasons and there is always something happening behind the scenes when it comes to the development of it. This past month TeaBoneJones joined the website development team and he will be working on an exciting feature. Each player’s salary and rank will be available on their profile and be updated frequently so the information does not become outdated. This is something we know a number of people have requested.

We are also considering getting the content train back up and running again. If you have a passion or interest in journalism/writing and feel you could produce regular, engaging content on behalf of MLE for the website then please reach out TheGamingBear.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

As our community has grown there has been increasing interest in how things work behind the scenes and specifically where the revenue generated from Twitch, Patreon and merchandise is used. As stated frequently, revenue has mainly been used for the creation and development for logos for our 32 franchises. But we thought we would give a bit more insight into where the revenue is used and how it is essentially split. The information provided in the graphic below doesn’t account for all revenue, but more the distribution of the revenue that has been used this season.

Not all revenue that has been generated has been used. We essentially have managed revenue for future investments and projects. We are conscious of using any revenue wisely, ensuring any use of the revenue is beneficial and worthwhile. As you can see from the infographic revenue so far this season has only been used for a small number of aspects. As we near the completion of logos we can now start to look at other projects and potential investments.

In last month’s insight you may remember a brief mention regarding Patreon and a purpose to breath new life into it. As you know the world has somewhat changed this past month and we felt it best to hold off any changes for the time being. We didn’t feel it quite right promoting Patreon during this period of uncertainty. Of course we know Patreon is completely voluntary but at the same time we want to ensure people focus on what’s really important.

For those current Patreons we appreciate your continued support and we aren’t forgetting about you we can assure you. Your support has directly helped MLE, helping us fund such projects as franchise logos and ensuring we can keep services such as the website running. And while we but plans to refresh Patreon on a small hiatus you can be rest assured it gives more time to improve those changes.

So lastly we wanted to take this moment to reflect a bit on the state of things and how it effects MLE. Obviously as an online Esports organisation our operations aren’t really affected. However we know the situation is affecting many of our community members. While MLE can’t solve everyones’ problems we do want to encourage people in community to come together and support one and another through it. We have a great community built on respect and strong values, and in such testing times the strength and value of the community can be a great source of support for the people in it. So remember be kind, be respectful. Have fun and most importantly right now stay safe.

Thanks for reading,
from everyone at Minor League Esports

Welcome to the latest instalment of MLE Monthly Insight; an in-depth look behind the scenes at the different areas of MLE. In these articles we will look to give you, the community a peep behind the scenes, to see what’s happening and potentially what’s coming. So let’s get to it…

Community

Since the last insight Stovvadz has been installed as Community Director. The primary reasons behind this was to give Stovvadz more responsibility within MLE and to bolster Community operations. We are placing more than ever a greater focus on the Community, working on improving engagement and interaction. Part of those improvements have seen the Community team discuss potential surveys, which saw the release of a community survey regarding the Discord server. From this survey we have made a few changes such as merging two training channels into one, removing the redundant coaching role and looking to breath new life into the Hall of Fame amongst other things.

A new Community survey is planned to be released within the coming days. This survey will allow the Community to provide feedback on topics such as transparency, staff interactions with the community, and various other important topics. We appreciate any feedback we get and the more people that provide it the better we can act upon it and look to make improvements from it.

The Community team is also hard at work looking at how to improve how suggestions are handled. We were looking into using EMILIO (Riz’s lovechildbot) to create a new suggestion system. This has proved trickier than first thought and would be difficult to implement all the functionality we would require. Instead of implementing a bot system some upgrades have been made to the current suggestions tracker based on feedback & suggestions.

We are delighted with the response and attendance to the Council Q&As. We hope the Community have enjoyed them so far. Going forward we will look to try hold these at least bi-weekly if not more often, with at least a couple of Council members in attendance at each Q&A. Some of you maybe wondering if this signals the death of the Town Hall? Well after reviewing our operations we have decided to focus Town Halls for the off-season, when there is usually a greater influx of new members to MLE, as well as a number of organisational changes (i.e. rules, structure, etc.).

Elsewhere in the Community team, the events team has not had much success with events so far this season, with low sign-up numbers a problem. The team are committed to providing engaging and entertaining events for the community and are looking at ways to make events more attractive.

Admissions has been running smoothly, with a steady flow of new people joining the community. As always we welcome those joining and hope you enjoy being part of MLE.

Play of the Week activity has been slightly disappointing in terms of voting this season, with approximately 20 valid votes each week. We are looking at ways to improve visibility of Play of the Week and make the process more straight forward. Don’t forget You can see all the Plays of the Week winners from this Season and previous ones on YouTube.

LEAGUE OPERATIONS

Now the Season is well under way, the primary “grind” for League Ops has started. The bulk of League Ops daily work is transactions and ranks, ensuring these are dealt with efficiently and processed correctly. The start of the season always provides a few unique challenges. One of the main ones this season is a result of the change of uploading replays instead of result screenshots. There’s been a few struggles acclimating to this change but things have improved over the past few weeks and the process has become almost routine for all involved. This is only possible thanks to the efforts of the statistics team and General Managers, so thank you to all involved for their work & co-operation.

League Ops is always looking at General Managers responsibilities and how they can be simplified/made easier. With this in mind the team implemented new GM support roles including Captains & Public Relations support. These additions appear to be well received and the League Ops team is very pleased with the results fo far.

One issue the team encountered in Week 1 was with regards the server reset rules. The team addressed these by rewriting the “Once Underway” section of the rule book to better explain the process following a reset request. To our knowledge, no issues akin to what happened in Week 1 have occurred since.

Looking forward, League Ops current goals for the coming weeks include upping support for the developers team, in an effort to begin displaying on our website the work stats team has done assembling MLE’s historical data in a readable and usable fashion. This process is likely to take quite some time, but it is a daily effort from the developer team and stats team alike. They are also working on a way to open up the replays we’re collecting for community use. And finally, EMILIO is an ongoing project that League Ops intend to, one day, appoint as Supreme Ruler of League Operations.

BROADCAST

The Broadcast team has had a good start to the Season, and despite a few minor issues, have set a good foundation going forward. Very recently our Broadcast operations received a big boost thanks to Simple_Aob who has developed a system, which essentially automates key parts of our broadcast such as transitions. This system will mean, in theory, we have a greater pool of broadcasters to call upon. It also will help deliver a more consistent quality of broadcasts. So a big “nice one!” goes to Aob for implementing this for us. We have also implemented a new system for updating our scoreboard, which also simplifies the process for Broadcasters. These improvements have given us a strong platform to build upon and we are now looking at ways how we can improve our output.

Viewer numbers for the Season so far have been decent however we would like streams to consistently achieve an average of 100 viewers. We are always looking at ways to increase the attraction of broadcasts and are open to suggestions. We would like to encourage more people, especially franchise accounts, to retweet the official broadcast schedule posted on Twitter each week. This will help provide more exposure, especially in the Rocket League community. The infographic below shows viewing figures for past month and Season 10 as a whole up to now, as well as revenue generated (please note this does not take into account any commission Twitch receives).

The Affiliate program has had a good start to the season as well, with Riyo doing an excellent job leading that side of Broadcast. We currently have a good number of people in the program close to becoming verified, which will mean more Affiliate Broadcasts! We are looking into ways we can improve the exposure of verified broadcasts. Part of the “problem” is Affiliate Broadcasts don’t follow a set schedule as do Official Broadcasts. This means we are not always sure how many Affiliate Broadcasts there will be each week and when they will be. This makes promotion a little less straight forward but not impossible. Two ways we will promote such streams are through announcements, as well as posting Affiliate Broadcasts for that week in the broadcast-schedule channel.

One element of Broadcast operations that has been discussed in the community recently is that of Broadcast series scheduling/allocation. We understand there’s a desire for teams to get a fair share of screen time and we will endeavour to achieve this were possible. Due to the manner of how series are scheduled it is not straight forward to ensure an equal spread of series amongst teams. Bearing in mind there are only 6 “stream slots” each week, which means a total of 12 teams can be streamed each week. With 10 weekends of broadcast action, which essentially means there are 60 stream slots, so there are 120 opportunities for a team to be selected. There are 112 teams in MLE (split amongst the 32 franchises), which means in theory each team could be streamed once, but for that to happen would there would need to be “perfect scheduling” (i.e. teams scheduling in broadcast times every week). Therefore it’s somewhat an impossible task so we have to strike a balance between fairness as well as ensuring the best matches are shown. The infographic below gives some detail on the broadcast spread so far this season.

MEDIA

Our media team has been mainly focused on cranking out the weekly assets, such as Stars of the Week, Play of the Week, etc. We have also implemented Conference standings graphics for each league, which those who tuned into the Week 3 Broadcasts will have seen (see example below). We are looking to implement more stats/info based graphics as the season progresses.

The team has undergone a small restructure with the addition of Wheezy to the team, whilst Porkchop and TeaBoneJones stepped down. We would like to take this moment to thank them both for their support. Wheezy brings years of expertise and knowledge that we hope will help improve our visual output.

We know everyone is eager to know more logo progress. We currently sit at 16 of the 32 logos complete, halfway there! We are really happy with the quality of the logos produced so far and look forward to seeing the remaining 16 completed. We know progress has perhaps been slower than people hoped/expected and in full honesty we would have liked the progress to be a bit quicker but we didn’t want to compromise on quality & style. With that being said we are looking into speeding up the development, with an eye to ensure all logos are complete by the end of the Season and ready to roll out for Season 11, if not earlier.

MARKETING

The Marketing department has had a somewhat slow start to the season but plans are in place to increase productivity and output. The merch store will see some new designs coming in the near future. We had planned to release them in good time for RLCS, to give anyone who was attending an opportunity to rep MLE and their favourite franchise. Sadly with the cancellation of RLCS has somewhat hampered our plans but we still plan on releasing these designs soon. We are quite happy with the results of the merch store in terms of sales since its “doors opened”.  We would like to thank all those that have support MLE via buying merch, your support has directly been invested into MLE. You can see some interesting merch data in the infographic below as well as upcoming offers. While we are generally happy with the merch store we are exploring the possibility of changing our store front as we recognise some of the limitations our current store has.

In terms of Social Media, we are looking at increasing our output across all forms: Twitter, Instagram & Facebook with a view to becoming active on others. Hellyaman is currently revising the workflow in terms of Social Media output to ensure there is a consistent quality and frequency of content. In a recent meeting, franchise activity on Twitter was discussed. We are generally pleased with the levels of activity shown by franchises on Twitter and hope this continues through the season. We realise that Tweetdeck isn’t the most functional platform to post content on Twitter and are looking at how we can improve this interactivity those tweeting on franchise accounts have.

The Marketing team are also already looking ahead to the off-season and Season 11 with a view to generating more interest in and exposure for MLE, utilising visual media, such as hype videos, where possible.

SPONSORSHIP

There’s not too much happening with Sponsorship team at the moment now the Season has started. Focus is on ensuring the agreements and relationships between MLE and our sponsors are maintained. The team had hoped to acquire another sponsor for this season but ultimately a deal fell through. However we are very happy to continue to work with BAWLS & PowerA.

The community PowerA giveaway seems to be going well, with decent number of entries for both draws. There will be 6 more community draws during the regular season as well as 4 draws during the playoffs, which will be open to those outside the community. Check out some interesting stats behind the 2 giveaways. Just goes to show anyone in the community can win, regardless of how many tickets you acquire.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

We are currently in process of refreshing our Patreon with a view to offering more incentives and rewards. So far, the majority of revenue generated so far from Patroen, Twitch and merch has gone towards logos. We are now starting to focusing on ways we can invest future revenue and have a number of ideas/plans. We believe Patreon can be a great way to generate such revenue providing the community a level of transparency in terms of goals and rewarding them for their support. The finer details of this “refresh” are being ironed out with an announcement expected to happen in the very near future.

We are continually looking at ways to improve our website and have a few plans in place, such as a Community section. However priority right now is to sort out a few minor issues on the website, most notably the player “team issue” i.e. where players are assigned to the wrong teams.

And lastly back to the franchise logos. Our plan was to announce/show all 32 in a big, exciting event once they were all complete. However we have decided to change our tack and over the course of this season will be showing off a few at time. And what better time than now to show off one of the first logos that was created… the Aviators! We will let the logo do the talking first…

So there you have it; the first revealed franchise logo. This logo incorporates the presentational style we wanted; clean, relatively minimalistic but bold. We feel the presentational style applied to all logos allows for each franchise to emphasise their identity whilst feeling part of the MLE brand as a whole. We hope you like it and are looking forward to seeing more logos down the line. Please note while we will be releasing these logos they won’t be incorporated into MLE (I.e. Twitter pfps, on website, in graphics, etc.) until all 32 have been revealed. Thanks once again for your patience and most importantly your support during the logo creation process. The end is in sight and we can’t wait to see all the new logos in “action”.

So there you have it folks. We hope you enjoyed this insight, we took no board feedback from the last insight as well as analysing areas we could make it more informative and insightful. Till next month, have fun out there!

Welcome to the first MLE Monthly Insight; an in-depth look behind the scenes at the different areas of MLE. In these articles we will look to give you, the community a peep behind the scenes, to see what’s happening and potentially what’s coming. So let’s get to it…

Community

On the back of recent discussions in the community, we have been reviewing how we interact with the community and how we can improve such interactions. One way we communicate with the community is via Town Halls and when these have been run they have generally been quite successful. That being said there have only been a few Town Halls since their introduction and it has become apparent that perhaps the format of Town Halls isn’t quite as productive as it could be. We are currently revising Town Halls and looking at ways we can improve them.

As you will have seen we are introducing weekly Council Q&A’s. These will be smaller, less “all encompassing” meetings than Town Halls held by council members on a weekly basis. These Q&A’s will allow for community members to ask questions directly to the council. The first Council Q&A will be held by TyTy tonight at 7pm ET.

This doesn’t mean Town Halls will disappear completely but the introduction of the Q&A’s will allow for more focused opportunities for the community to interact with MLE. There are plans to improve how suggestions submitted via submission form are handled, with a view to implementing status updates on suggestions. Lastly we will be looking at having more concentrated community surveys throughout the season to really gauge community opinions.

On the events front, the team have taken this off-season to review operations, hence why there haven’t been any events since “12 Days of Christmas”. Captains Clash will return this season but will now happen on Wednesday evenings. The events team are also looking to run a pre-season event for each league as we build up to the start of the season. There are plans to try do some events based on different Rocket Leagues modes however these can only happen with enough community interest & participation. Hopefully we can increase the levels of participation this season and the introduction of an “opt-in” Events role should provide more direct attention to events. If you are interested in taking part in MLE events type the following command into the #command-center channel: !rank Events.

Lastly, Fittz is working on the return of the MLE Fantasy League and will have an announcement within the coming days.

LEAGUE OPERATIONS

With the draft now done & dusted, League Operations will now start to shift their focus to day-to-day operations; player trades, roster, changes, etc. The League Ops team still have a few things to implement and announce. One major new addition to Season 10 will be a Scheduling Server for GMs. The aim of the server is to provide an environment that centralizes communications between franchises for match scheduling.

The MLE Multi-Tool, a spreadsheet that acts as a quick reference for season fixture schedule, match times and dates, and pairing uses/reserve uses is close to being completed. The League Ops team are also close to finishing work on the MLE Scheduler, a tool for GMs to use to help coordinate their players’ schedules within the franchise.

Lastly League Ops are exploring additional support for GMs. As MLE has grown the demand, responsibilities and expectations on GMs has also increased. We want to ensure we do our best to help those who are passionate about MLE and the franchise GM’s definitely fit this criteria. We will provide more info when the exact details of the additional support have been finalised.

BROADCAST

The Broadcast team has slowly been taking shape in this off season and a new organisational structure has been put in place to ensure Broadcast Operations run smoothly. Sleegi & Theevilisback have come on board as Broadcast Coordinators, whilst Riyo will be overseeing Affiliates and InanimateJ has come back into the fold in an advisory role.

The main objective for Broadcast this season is to ensure a consistent quality of broadcasts throughout the season, which will help to provide a platform for Production for which to develop on. On top of this we want to help nurture broadcast talent, providing a pathway for talented and enthusiastic individuals to become involved with Official Broadcasts. We are hoping the application form posted in community announcements this week will help attract such individuals. We will be reviewing the applications received so far this week, thank you to all those that have applied.

There are unlikely to many drastic changes to Broadcasts this season, at least in the short term, bar a few aesthetic changes here and as of writing Broadcasts will follow same structure as last season; 3 series Saturday & Sunday evenings starting from 8pm ET.

MEDIA

Whilst we patiently wait the creation of the new team logos, the Media team has been focused on reviewing and updating assets as well as looking to implement a few new things on the way. Whenever assets are updated or created the aim is to always ensure the presentational style is consistent. No doubt you will start to see some of these improvements as we near the start of the season. We will have an update on franchise logos very soon.

MARKETING

With the recent addition of Gogurt as Marketing Coordinator, the Marketing team are currently discussing and devising plans for the season ahead and beyond. While there is not much to report as of this moment we can assure you there will be a much better focus on marketing efforts. It is important for the growth and future of MLE to ensure we are always attracting new people to the community and increasing the interest in MLE as a whole.

SPONSORSHIP

We are hoping to retain BAWLS and PowerA as sponsors for Season 10 and discussions are on going at present. Both BAWLS & PowerA have become synonymous with MLE these past few seasons and hopefully this will continue going forward. Negotiations with both sponsors are close to being finalised, with BAWLS expected to continue sponsoring Play of the Week. The sponsorship team are also looking at possibility of bringing in a few other sponsors as well but as of this moment there is nothing definitive to announce.

FINAL WORD

That wraps up the first MLE Monthly Insight, we hope you enjoyed the content & insight into MLE operations. We will look to produce these on a monthly basis to keep you, the MLE Community, updated on what’s going on behind the scenes. Obviously some months some areas might have as much to report but where possible we will keep you as informed as much as we can. Going forward we will try incorporate a bit more media when possible to make these articles more engaging.

Thank you for reading, we hope you found the information interesting. Please feel free to provide any feedback/suggestions on these Monthly Insights. Your opinions will help to shape the content, structure, etc. Until next time… have fun!