Welcome to Supporters Gaming League

As some of you have seen, Sentry Esports is proud to help the Rocket League community! As part of Sentry’s journey into furthering their portfolio of esports productions, Rocket League is a great next step. And we at Sentry could not be happier to help out a tight knit league like SGL!

Here’s some background about SGL. The league started in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the world shut down, the entire sports world was wondering what to do to pass the time until a possible return was even feasible. Football had just concluded so there was no need to worry until summer training camps. But what about the likes of baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer? Basketball and hockey were dealt the worst hands with their current status as mid-season and playoffs were still to be played out. Baseball and soccer fans were in spring training and pre-season respectively. While the MLB is another deep dive into how sports leagues handled the pandemic, we will be focusing on soccer for the sake of this article. So what would soccer leagues such as Major League Soccer (MLS), United Soccer League (USL), Liga MX, and other international leagues do? They turned to a medium that would help deliver fan experiences while being stuck at home; esports and streaming. 

The leagues spanning multiple sports had started to create content around the video games that involved their franchises. Esports leagues out of sports games began to thrive in this environment and brought new players to the fold. What is interesting is that the USL created a competition for their fans to view as well. However, the game played was Rocket League instead of FIFA. It was a 1v1 competition that pitted players, team employees, or even fans against each other. Many Supporters Groups of various clubs across North America realized they could pass the time with leagues involving both FIFA and Rocket League. This is where the Supporters Gaming League comes in. 

The League did not even start as a league but as a supporters tournament to have some fun during lockdown. The original eight Supporters Groups that participated in its first iteration included La Cinco 12 (Austin Bold), The Surge (Houston Dynamo), RGV Stampede (Rio Grande Valley Toros), Tigers SG (LAFC), Dark Clouds (Minnesota United), KC Cauldron (Sporting Kansas City), Viking Army (New York Red Bulls), and the Midnight Riders (New England Revolution). These teams would end up becoming the foundation for a Supporters League focused on uniting supporters from all over North America to share in a game they all loved.

Fast forward to April 2020 and the League explodes to 20 Supporters Groups forming 1 league and creating competition for groups spanning across the MLS, USL, and Liga MX.

Supporters groups now had the outlet to continue the feel of having competition in their lives with sports leagues shut down. Plenty of high quality players and newer players were brought together to form a community bonded by supporting their clubs. With little time to go explore outside, the League was able to run steady competitions on Friday nights and Saturday mornings/afternoons.

SGL has continued on to this very day! Throughout the high volume team early era that was predominated by a rather unpleasant virus, SGL has had to adapt to the world reacclimating itself to normalcy. Even with the complications of the times today, SGL has maintained its identity of a “Supporters First” mission. The intention is to unify their supporters groups through the love of Rocket League and fair competition for all involved. Plenty of Supporters Groups have come and gone, including supporters groups of teams that have recently ceased operations. Recently finishing up Season 6, they intend to bring Season 7 in early 2024.

Steve “Debit” Pater is an owner of Team SMAK, LLC and TO for Sentry Esports. In addition to these titles, Steve is also an Administrator of the Supporters Gaming League. He has been a member and captain of the Steel Army Supporters Group that participates in SGL. He has been in SGL since Season 1 in 2020. Having been promoted to the Admin Role in 2022, he intends to keep the core mission alive and unite two of his passions in esports and soccer.

Posted on September 30, 2023