Hi {{first_name | there}},

The past couple of months have been really quiet on the surface — but not by accident.

Since the 2025 Review, our focus has been on refining what we’ve built, reallocating time toward the areas that matter most, and preparing for the next phase of growth across Ireland Esports Leagues — both as a national structure and as a model we can scale more broadly over time.

In this industry, it’s easy to mistake noise for progress. This period has been about doing the opposite, building progress that actually matters.

Alongside that, it’s been great to see one of our own step onto the international stage, with Ronan Monaghan announced as Ireland Team Manager for the Esports Nations Cup — a strong reflection of the talent emerging through our ecosystem.

Our short reads, long reads, successes, challenges…well you know the rest, they follow below 👇🏼

🗞️ In Focus – As the global esports landscape undergoes a seismic shift following the cancellation of the Olympic Esports Games, the rapid emergence of the Esports Nations Cup (ENC26) has forced a new regional reality.

While Great Britain leverages its elite infrastructure through partnerships with Fnatic and The FA, Ireland is taking a grassroots-first approach by centralising its ecosystem under newly appointed National Team Manager Ronan Monaghan - a member of the Nativz Gaming Team.

This month, we dive into the "Road to Riyadh," exploring the origin of this $20M nation-based model and most importantly, how Great Britain and Ireland are navigating it.

Here’s our selection of short and long reads from across the esports and gaming media;

🚀 Collegiate Series in its strongest position yet. With the Spring semester concluding, we now enter the biggest shift in Irish esports as we kick-off the new Collegiate Series National Semi-Finals on 11 May. The leaderboard tells the story.

🚀 Ireland Esports Leagues brand stepping forward. Work across our digital infrastructure is now in place to maximise a series of announcements and PR activity as we strengthen IEL’s position as the leading operator on the island of Ireland.

🚀 International recognition for one of our own. Ronan Monaghan’s appointment as Ireland Team Manager for the Esports Nations Cup highlights the pathways emerging through our local Ireland Esports Leagues ecosystem.

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One of the defining challenges of this period has been resisting the temptation to keep everything moving at once.

With multiple opportunities across Schools, Collegiate and Company Series, the harder — and more important — decision has been where to focus.

Insights from our two Company Series pilots have given us clear direction on how to strengthen the format. As a result, we’ve chosen to move the next tournament to Winter 2026, allowing us to build those improvements properly while prioritising delivery of the Schools Series pilot.

For us, this reflects a broader shift toward sequencing, not scaling everything simultaneously. The challenge now is maintaining that discipline as more opportunities come into view.

As we move into the next phase, our focus shifts toward building the right partnerships to deliver at scale.

Two areas where introductions would make a real difference:

If that sounds like someone in your network, we’d welcome an introduction.

The following metrics are for the period of 1-31 March 2026:

Take a look at what we've got coming up:

📅 13-16 April - Collegiate Series Spring Semester Finals Week

📅 11-14 May - Collegiate Series National Semi-Finals

📅 23-24 May - Collegiate Series National Finals LAN

Regards,

Kurt & the Nativz Gaming Team