09/17/21 – Esports Start Time Update and Registration Deadline Extension

September 17, 2021 eSports Blog Updates

As we head into the start of the Fall 2021 Esports season many of you have noticed a change in the default match start time to 5 p.m. ET/4 p.m. CT.  This change was originally intended to allow our Central Time Kentucky schools the ability to make matches on time without having to reschedule week after week. Unfortunately, current scheduling must be set league-wide and individual matches cannot be automatically adjusted based on time zone.

Given the feedback we’ve received from the first week of the preseason, and after working in partnership with KHSAA and the Kentucky Department of Education, we’ve decided that we’ll be starting the KHSAA Esports Fall Season at 4:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. CT effective immediately. This also helps to ensure that teams are not competing during prime-time instructional hours, which was a required condition when esports was first sanctioned. Coaches still have the ability to reschedule matches, but they may not begin before 3:30 p.m. Central.

In addition, due to overwhelming input from coaches and administrators, we’ll be shifting the Fall 2021 Esports Registration Deadline back one week to October 1st with the regular season matches starting October 5th.  While we all had hoped by this time that the outlook on the new school year would look better, we’ve heard many of you are still trying to navigate the new normal. 

The updated schedule is as follows:
Fall Registration Deadline: 10/1
Preseason: 9/13 – 10/1 (3 weeks)
Regular Season: 10/4 – 11/19 (7 weeks)
Thanksgiving Break: 11/22-11/26 (1 week)
Playoffs: 11/29 – no later than 12/17 (3 weeks)

The schedule above does not change any of the timelines for the Thanksgiving Break or Playoffs and the season will end at exactly the same time as before. We’ve shifted the week of 9/27/2021 to become a 3rd week of preseason instead of the 1st week of the regular season to minimally impact the schedule.

We understand that late schedule updates are far from ideal and we would not have made the change unless it was clear that the current timeline was impacting schools’ ability to participate this fall. We will incorporate this feedback into our schedules in future seasons. 

Helpful Links: 
Enrollment Webinar – walkthrough on sign-up and enrolling your teams
Help Center – general FAQs, coach resources, and technical resources

– KHSAA –

About the Kentucky High School Athletic Association
The Kentucky High School Athletic Association was organized in 1917 and is the agency designated by the Kentucky Department of Education to manage high school athletics in the Commonwealth. The Association is a voluntary nonprofit 501(c)3 organization made up of 285 member schools both public and non-public. The KHSAA awards 215 state championships to 51 teams and 164 individuals in 13 sports and 6 sport-activities, funds catastrophic insurance coverage for its more than 106,000 rostered member school student-athletes, provides coaching education and sports safety programs for more than 12,000 coaches, and licenses and facilitates the distribution of training material for over 4,000 contest officials.