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!