Forfeits remain a serious issue in collegiate and scholastic esports. Despite many discussions online lamenting endless rescheduling, a real solution has yet to be found.
Posts by Cora Kennedy and JakeTheDad among others have revitalized the discussion over what to do about teams failing to attend matches, with Jake in particular taking aim at PlayVS. The conversation has even extended to posts about the role that well-funded esports programs play into the problem.
The Extent of the Problem
All of the major collegiate and scholastic esports leagues hold their matches on a set night of the week. Oftentimes, a different game will run each night, giving players a theoretically set schedule to base their weeks around.
In practice, students and staff can face wild changes in the weekly routine. As JakeTheDad pointed out in his post, forfeit rates (teams not showing up to compete) are incredibly high across some leagues. He takes aim at PlayVs in particular, but forfeits are a common occurrence across a wide variety of leagues, especially as the season stretches on.
Even if teams are available to compete, many require rescheduling their matches in order to have their entire roster available. Most leagues allow for these reschedules as long as both teams agree on the new date and time.
What’s To Be Done?
Esports has several factors going against it in regards to forfeits and reschedules. For one, there’s still a lack of recognition on behalf of schools for competitive esports and esports leagues.
For a typical NCAA sanctioned sport, matches that interfere with a student’s schedule are incredibly common. Schools have established infrastructures in order to support students in both their athletic and academic pursuits to ensure both go hand in hand. This includes staff helping students effectively plan out their schedule, and a campus-wide understanding that scheduling conflicts will arise.
On the esports side, most students don’t have the same resources that their traditional sports counterparts have. Students are put in the uncomfortable position of having to find another night in the week that works for their opponent or have to give up the match. It’s one thing to lose because you were outplayed, but feeling like you let the team down due to outside factors is something else entirely.
Support varies wildly between competing schools even in the same league. While some schools recruit pro players and have dedicated staff working to help them succeed, many schools competing are loosely tied under the banner of a school club, ideally with a staff member helping organize the many facets of having success during and outside of competition.
These are all well-known issues that leagues have done their best to try and deal with. Several leagues have policies that kick teams from the league that forfeit too often, or force rescheduling to happen early enough before a scheduled match to give everyone time to adjust to the new schedule.
Ultimately, though, these fixes are bandaid solutions to broader problems. Cooperation needs to be a joint effort between leagues, players, and school administrators. Without all the key stakeholders on board, someone will always drop the ball and leave everyone else to pick up the pieces.
