It’s good to have goals.

A long-standing goal I’ve had for CornNation is to make sure we’re entertaining. Interesting.

It’s a challenging goal to maintain given you’re here (mostly) for our beloved Huskers sports team and there will be no sports at Nebraska or any other Big Ten School this fall, and potentially through the winter.

I have an obligation as site manager to keep you entertained. Interested.

Therefore, I jumped at the chance when our Iowa State brethren at WNRL proposed an eSports league. I’m been a gamer for quite some time, an anomaly, I might add, at 58 years old. I find video games of all types fascinating, although some I’m too old to play anymore.

Having eSports on this site is a natural fit for me. Kind of. I have the reaction time of a drunk sloth on quaaludes so it’s a sure bet I’m gonna get smoked in most of these games. I’ve concluded it’s one reason I’m still on the earth - to give all y’all someone to feel better than no matter what we’re doing.

I am in favor of participating in eSports because:

• It might be fun, entertaining, and interesting
• We might be in this for the long haul. I want this community and this web site to survive this damned pandemic.

We NEED PARTICIPATION!

Below you can read about how this is supposed to work and the eSports events/games we’ll be playing.

If you are interested in playing, or joining CN, please leave a comment. It might be if we get enough of us, we organize our own tournament.

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The Events

While we’re exploring options for different games and competition formats to try and add to the rotation, here are the events that have so far been confirmed as part of the schedule for the Fall 2020 season:

Xbox One

Madden 21 Single Elimination Tournament

NBA 2K21 Single Elimination Tournament

Playstation 4

Madden 21 Single Elimination Tournament

NBA 2K21 Single Elimination Tournament

MLB The Show 20 Single Elimination Tournament

Cross-Play

Call of Duty: Warzone 2v2 Tournament

Rocket League 3v3 Tournament

PC

Civilization 6 Game

Competitions are expected to start September 6th, and will take place each week thereafter. Like games on different systems will be played at the same time. So, for instance, the Madden 21 Tournaments on Xbox One and PS4 will be played in the same week.

The Format

Our tournaments will feature a variety of different formats, and maybe even some ongoing leagues like Madden Franchise or NBA2K MyLeague. However, in regards to season scoring, the events will follow this basic structure: the last place team will receive one team point, second-last will receive two, and so on and so forth until we get to the winner, who will receive their bonus points on top of their standard score.

So, for a 10-team tournament in which each team gets two player entries (so 20 total players), the last place player would earn one point, and the winner would earn 20 points, plus a five point bonus for winning the tournament, earning at total of 25 points for their team. If a team’s two entrants were to finish 4th and 11th, the team would earn 17+10 = 27 total points for their team.

Teams will can feature anyone at all, from blog staff, all the way down to you, the readers. What does that mean? Keep your eye out, because we are looking for people to represent CornNation in a few events!

The Teams

Maize n Brew - Michigan Wolverines

Big East Coast Bias

Ralphie Report - Colorado Buffaloes

The Daily Stampede - USF Bulls

Tomahawk Nation - Florida State Seminoles

Corn Nation - Nebraska Cornhuskers

College & Magnolia - Auburn Tigers

Hammer & Rails - Purdue Boilermakers

Frogs O’ War - TCU Horned Frogs

Streaking the Lawn - Virginia Cavaliers

Rock Chalk Talk - Kansas Jayhawks

How to Watch

Below is copied from WRNL.

I am still unsure as how to stream games, it will be something we need to figure out. We’ll probably do some trial runs just because... it might be fun listening to me swear while I get slaughtered in Warzone.

I’m not sure about Youtube and/or Twitch. I’d appreciate some feedback.

Since streaming capabilities are dependent on the players in each individual matchup, we may not be able to stream every single match, but we’re going to do our best to bring you as many games and matches as possible for you to watch.

Matches will be streamed on our YouTube and Twitch channels, as well as Periscope via the WRNL eSports Champsionship Series Twitter account. You’ll also be able to track event brackets and scores via Battlefy, which will host all of our official scoring. Links to the individual event brackets will be posted before the event starts.

Join our team!