Hey everyone,

After a couple of fake springs (shoutout to the cold weather the past few weeks), we’re officially in the spring season! We’ve done a lot since our last team update, especially with our presence at the NFL Pro Bowl, Super Bowl LVIII and Draft through Madden competitions between the best collegiate Madden players. Let’s go through some of our highlights so far this year.

Rally Cry Collegiate Series, presented by The Army National Guard

We wrapped up 5 out of 6 of our Collegiate Series tournaments. In early February, we invited the best players from our HBCU FGC Circuit to compete live at the HyperX Arena in Las Vegas to kick off Super Bowl LVIII. Throughout March, we concluded our Rocket League and Counter-Strike 2 tournaments online. 

Congratulations to our winners:

• HBCU Street Fighter 6: George Boatend (Talladega College)
• HBCU Tekken 7: Danny Grandison (North Carolina A&T State University)
• HBCU Guilty Gear Strive: Ahmad Whitaker (Howard University)
• Rocket League: OC Esports (Oklahoma Christian University)
• Counter-Strike 2: Northwood Esports (Northwood University)
• Madden: TBA

We also just returned from the Madden Collegiate Championship finals in Detroit, MI at the NFL Draft. ICYMI, don’t worry! Broadcast of the finals and the Super Smash Bros. showmatch between Oakland University and Michigan State University will be announced soon – stay tuned!

Campus Tour Stops, presented by The Army National Guard

Within just five months, we visited 8 colleges as part of our Campus Tour Stops to support their events:

• Grand Canyon University: Western Cactus League Week 1 & 2
• California State University, Long Beach: GGBeach
• Shenandoah University & Syracuse University: Boost on the Beach
• Boise State University: Smash Bros. Throw Down
• Michigan State University: Esports Club Association Spring 24 LAN
• Harrisburg University: Gameday 24
• Ohio State University: Big Esports Conference
• San Diego State University: Aztec Gaming Spring Games 2024

We have a lot more colleges to visit in the near future, so stay in the loop. If you’re a collegiate esports leader looking for event support, you can apply for our College Event Support program.

Air Force Gaming

The Department of the Air Force Gaming League (DAFGL) Spring Season just wrapped up! Congratulations to our winners:

• Street Fighter 6: BustyJusty from Fort Meade
• League of Legends ARAM: Freedom Fighters (Hazey from Sheppard AFB, Kingapdo from Hill AFB, Shiro from Travis AFB)
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3: Deployers (Cryptic from Minot, WASD from Offutt AFB, Wolf from JB Langley-Eustis, Itama from Buckley SFB, MedicatedGoblin from Buckley SFB)

The FORCECON Gaming Expo just concluded, where U.S. armed service branches competed in the Armed Forces Esports Championship in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023). Congratulations to the winning team, U.S. Army Esports!

We also host regular community events, including Magic The Gathering Pioneer League, community coaching for Rocket League by former RLCS coach Trey and community game nights.

LCS Challengers League

After a grueling three months, we have concluded the LCS Challengers League Spring Season and Spring Promotions! Our NACL finalists competed live at the Riot Games Arena with an audience full of fans, friends, family, LCS pros and aspiring League of Legends professionals. Congratulations to Flyquest Challengers for winning NACL! Special thanks to Subway, NACL’s sponsor, for providing our players with an opportunity to showcase their skills throughout the season.

Rainbow Six Siege Collegiate

Phase 3 of our Rainbow Six Collegiate competition concluded very recently. The regular season was tight with the top eight teams qualifying for playoffs. In the very end, Team Colligate University, representing Virginia Tech, rose to the top and were crowned champions – congratulations!

‍K-12 and Collegiate Partner Programs

Through our partnership with the NFL, we invited top Madden players and casters from HBCU schools to compete in our exclusive Madden NFL x HBCU Tournament and experience the 2024 NFL Pro Bowl Games. This unique experience was joined by NFL superstars: Tiffany Greene (ESPN Commentator), Ahman Green (Former NFL Running Back) and Kevin “DaKingg” Johnson Jr. (Top 30 MCS Player). Congratulations to the students who qualified to compete and cast in the tournament:

• Dametri “Neighbour” Hill (Fort Valley State University ‘24)
• DaSean “ThaRealSuave” Wade Neclos Jr. (North Carolina A&T ‘24) – Winner of Open Qualifiers
• Alon “Kinglon_23” Anwoju (Albany State University ‘26)
• Kiara “Krex003” Davis (Tennessee State University ‘26) – Winner of Women’s Qualifiers
• Egypt “Jazmirafy” Garrett (Tennessee State University ‘26)
• Taylor Adams (Florida A&M University ‘26)
• Germanie Bozeman (Florida A&M University ‘26)
• Ernest Walker (Florida A&M University ‘25

Our partnership with Stride Esports continues this year, helping operate and host scholastic competitions in Rocket League, Chess, Super Smash Bros., VALORANT and Fortnite. We’re approaching the end of spring season with playoffs happening across the next few weeks.

Missouri Valley Conference, one of our newest partners, have been operating their esports competitions on our platform – their latest spring season competitions just concluded!

Our US Academic Esports League (USAEL) spring semester kicked off with Super Smash Bros. and Rocket League! We also hosted the Clark County Madden Finals at Gamerfest, where students competed in Madden at the HyperX Arena in Las Vegas. So far this year, we hosted various event offerings, including webinars, watch parties and community game nights. We have welcomed dozens of new schools to the program and we’re excited to invite more!

With the future of scholastic esports looking very bright, we want to level up the community through our support. We’re proud to announce a landmark partnership with Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), the largest business Career and Technical Student Organization in the world. The organization helps over 230,000 prepare for careers in business through leadership experiences and learning opportunities. We’re thrilled to host the upcoming FBLA Rocket League Esports Competition, where FBLA middle school, high school and collegiate students compete in the game while analyzing various facets of esports for their research paper. Stay tuned for more information!

/Play

We ran it back with our good friend Lamby for more Marvel: SNAP opens! We already ran two opens together this year: one in January, another in March.

There’s more /Play competitions coming this summer, featuring titles beyond SNAP! Something quite tactical is in the works…

Platform tech updates

So far this year, Rally Cry has primarily focused on developing competition administration tools.

• Broadcast Kit
  If you are interested in broadcasting a Rally Cry competition, our new streamer kit offers users a dashboard that enables you to create customized live graphics powered directly by competition data and our match API. These graphics are updated in real-time with match information and can be easily integrated into your stream, regardless of the software you are using. The kit includes templates that enable you to manage your entire broadcast from start to finish, eliminating the need for extra graphics or tedious data entry mid-broadcast. If you're an experienced streamer, you also have the option to selectively choose templates and customize them to align with your existing designs.
  
• Competition Administration
  We've revamped the management system for competition administrators, enhancing both scheduling and team management. Our updated calendar, with a visually appealing display, enables players to quickly comprehend their upcoming schedule. Meanwhile, administrators can swiftly structure their competitions by dragging, dropping, copying, and pasting events. The new team manager lets administrators handle teams enrolled in a competition en masse. They can easily create, remove, check in, message, seed, or assign teams to brackets. When allocating teams to a bracket, administrators can now distribute them among multiple bracket groups based on seeding and bracket sizing criteria. This bulk team management and distribution system is particularly beneficial for larger competitions involving 500+ teams.
  
• Achievements
  We've made updates to our achievement system. Now, any moderator can effortlessly grant achievements to users, squads, or communities. Moreover, administrators have the ability to define and manage their own custom achievements.
  

Interested in powering your next competition with the Rally Cry platform or need to learn more on how to use the platform? Contact us for a free platform demo.

New staff

Introducing our newest members of the Rally Cry team: Michael Suscello, Kristie Tjen and Cathy Ge!

Michael "Fridgy" Suscello

Position: Tournament Admin

What got you into esports: “I always felt a sense of belonging and self satisfaction in gaming, it's always been a goal of mine to create opportunities for the community and provide a place for everyone to belong.”

Fun fact: “My right eye has half a pupil!”

Kristie Tjen

Position: Associate Marketing Manager, League Operations

What got you into esports: “LCS, when I first started playing League of Legends back in 2014! I didn’t fully commit to esports involvement until college at UC Davis.”

Fun fact: “Battle Cats is my secret obsession and the only mobile game I will ever play.”

Cathy Ge

Position: League Operations Manager

What got you into esports: “I grew up loving competitive games and went to UCLA with playing on their esports team and working on their staff in mind. Ended up as Director of the UCLA Esports program, worked in collegiate esports, and then started at the Call of Duty League while I was still finishing school during COVID.”

Fun fact: “I'm really passionate about food and cooking.”

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