Bringing Esports to Riga’s Youth, The Story of Riga's Esports Tournaments

When people think about esports projects, they usually imagine major international tournaments, arenas, and huge prize pools. But sometimes, the projects that leave the biggest impression are the ones focused on local communities and creating opportunities for the next generation.

That was exactly the case with Rīgas Esporta Turnīri, a project organized together with the Riga Municipality Youth Department with support from European Union funding.

The goal of the initiative was clear: engage young people through digital activities and show that esports can be a positive, structured, and community-driven environment when approached professionally.

For us at Goexanimo, it was also an opportunity to prove that esports projects can coexist successfully with educational and youth-focused initiatives, which governments and public organizations across Europe are increasingly interested in.

Building a Tournament for Latvian Youth

Across the project, we delivered two online tournaments for students across Latvia:

- An online Chess tournament

- An online Rocket League tournament

Both titles were chosen very intentionally.

Chess has always had a strong tradition in Latvia, while Rocket League represents one of the biggest non-violent esports titles globally, and interestingly, both games are also part of the Esports World Cup ecosystem today.

We explored several game options during the planning phase, but ultimately wanted titles that felt accessible, competitive, and suitable for a youth-focused initiative supported by public funding.

The response from students exceeded expectations. Across both tournaments, we reached around 400 unique participants, with especially strong interest coming from the chess side of the project.

And honestly, Latvia has some incredibly talented young chess players.

Creating Everything From Scratch

One of the things I’m most proud of with this project is that Goexanimo handled the entire operation internally.

Our team built:

- The registration system

- Tournament formats

- Visual identity and graphics

- Broadcast production

- Marketing campaigns

- Player communication

- Stream management

- Talent coordination

- Community support

Essentially, we created the entire ecosystem around the tournaments from the ground up.

As Head of Operations, my role involved overseeing the full project delivery, coordinating communication between departments and stakeholders, and making sure every part of the production stayed on track.

And somewhere along the way, I also ended up helping commentate both the chess and Rocket League broadcasts, which was definitely a fun change of pace from pure operations work.

Working Together with the Latvian Chess Federation

One of the highlights of the project was partnering with the Latvian Chess Federation.

Having the federation involved gave the chess tournament additional credibility and helped bridge the gap between traditional competitive environments and modern esports broadcasts. Even the president of the federation joined us as part of the live broadcast content, which created some genuinely interesting conversations around the future of competitive gaming and digital competition in Latvia. A big thank you goes out to Toms Kalniņš, the president of the Latvian Chess Federation.

That combination of traditional strategy games and modern esports was actually one of the most interesting parts of the entire initiative.

The Challenges Behind the Scenes

Like most community-driven esports projects, the biggest challenge was never the games themselves, it was managing the people.

With hundreds of students participating, there were naturally countless questions, schedule conflicts, technical issues, and support requests throughout the tournaments. On top of that, projects connected to the municipality and EU funding also involve significantly more structure and bureaucracy than a typical esports event.

It required a completely different level of organization, documentation, and communication compared to most commercial gaming projects.

But honestly, that experience was valuable for us as a company as well. It showed that esports agencies can successfully operate within official public-sector frameworks when the right processes and professionalism are in place.

Six Broadcasts and One Very Strong Rocket League Team

Across the project, we produced six broadcasts in total, three for chess and three for Rocket League, streamed live on YouTube and Twitch with full commentary and broadcast graphics.

The Rocket League tournament also gave students a very direct introduction to high-level competition, because participating teams eventually had to face the official Latvian national Rocket League team.

To put it simply, the national team did not make things easy for anyone.

Still, moments like that created excitement and allowed younger players to experience a genuinely competitive environment while still being part of a fun and welcoming community event.

Looking Back

Projects like Rīgas Esporta Turnīri are important for the future of esports, especially in smaller countries like Latvia.

They help introduce structured gaming environments to students, create opportunities for young people to connect through competition, and show public institutions that esports can absolutely be organized professionally, responsibly, and with real educational and community value behind it.

For Goexanimo, this project was also an important milestone. Working together with municipality institutions, EU-backed initiatives, and official organizations showed that esports agencies today need to be able to do much more than simply run tournaments. They need to communicate professionally, manage large-scale operations reliably, and adapt esports to entirely new environments.

Thankfully, the feedback after the project was incredibly positive, and seeing both students and institutional partners genuinely impressed with the final result made all the hard work worth it.

A huge thank you to Elvijs, the project manager, who put in so many hours to make this project a reality. Everyone involved, the Riga Municipality Youth Department, the Latvian Chess Federation, our broadcast team, and of course, all the students who participated throughout the tournaments.