All-Female Pro League of Legends Teams? Just a Matter of Time, Says Riot

[Schadrach]

I still don't understand why e-sports titles have 'female only' leagues.

I mean, in certain sports, it makes sense because of the inherent physical difference between the average male vs the average female.

But no such advantage is present when it comes to competitive gaming.

If there are good enough female players/teams, they will rise through the ranks and earn their way.

For the same reason there are women's chess tournaments, as ridiculous as it is there too. The argument is that there aren't enough women playing, so if they create a women's only league then they'll encourage more women to play. This is also why women-only events are perfectly great, but men-only events are evil and sexist.

Where it gets funny is that in doing so they actually make it harder for women to play at a level that's competitive with the men (because men have to be able to take all comers, but women only have to be able to take on other women). You see this in chess, where the highest ranking female chess player is dramatically better than the next one down, and she's so damn good because she doesn't play in the women's tournaments, she plays in the general ones (and thus is competing against the same talent pool as male players).

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Well yeah... monkeys and typewriters...

It just an 'eventuality' because the Community still needs to detoxify first before women can speak to other women without fear of being harassed.

Though it goes beyond women; it's a fair assumption to make that if you are a just a multi-cellural organism other players will find some reason and method to harass you with.

 

[Norix596]

Well it's not going to be a thing as long as over 90% of their customer base/players are male (according to numbers from the NYT article on them last week). You have to have a much greater number of women playing before there are a noticeable number that get good enough to be challengers at these competitions. It's not about whether they can promote girls' tournaments as much as they can convince more women to play LoL - the rest will likely happen on its own.

 

[EyeReaper]

Soo... I guess Riot's already forgotten about team siren? I mean, I don't blame him, and I don't think they're around anymore, but there still was a all girl "pro" team in the annals of history.

 

[Godhead]

Well obviously the team would fall into a TeenNick-esque type of feud with each other. But then eventually they'll all come together at the right time and hit a grand slam dunk to win the super bowl.

 

[Kyber]

Soo... I guess Riot's already forgotten about team siren? I mean, I don't blame him, and I don't think they're around anymore, but there still was a all girl "pro" team in the annals of history.

Everyone wants to forget about Team Siren, since they made way more harm than good for the women of the pro scene. Nobody wants to remember the only all girl pro team that trash talked and couldn't compete even with challenger teams. For god's sake even Wildturtle's and HotShotGG's joke team beat them.

 

[DrOswald]

I still don't understand why e-sports titles have 'female only' leagues.

I mean, in certain sports, it makes sense because of the inherent physical difference between the average male vs the average female.

But no such advantage is present when it comes to competitive gaming.

If there are good enough female players/teams, they will rise through the ranks and earn their way.

Why women only? Why not just have the men and the women on the same team?

The point is not to overcome any inherent disadvantage that may exist (because there obviously isn't one) but to overcome the current male dominated scene through encouragement of participation. Because this style of thing is largely a male thing (70% I think were the latest numbers for lol?) and traditionally hardcore gaming is a male past time the institutions of e-sports have inherited a male heavy pro base. This makes it hard for women to enter, even if we assume there is absolutely no sexism going on.

It is a self perpetuating problem - There are only men so women think it is a boys only club and that women are not welcome so very few women join so there are only men so women think...

This set of circumstance can also lead to sexism and exclusion. [ENGAGING HYPOTHETICAL SEXIST ATTITUDE!] After all, something like 30% of lol players are female. Why aren't 30% of pros female? obviously it is because girls are bad at lol.[DISENGAGING HYPOTHETICAL SEXIST ATTITUDE!]

The womens league is meant to combat this problem by creating an area where it is clear women are welcome. This strategy has been successful in the past (chess did this, for example.)

I fully support the idea myself. It is a proven effective strategy in dealing with a potential sexism problem that has no negative impact on the sport or male players.

snip

Now that you mention it, I could see viewers being really immature about it. Hadn't really considered that.

The other thing is that the typical pro loler is like, what, 20 years old or younger? People are really stupid and immature when they are 20. I know I was. It is certainly a problem to lookout for. They may not be 12, but 20 isn't much better when it comes to avoiding drama.

 

[DrOswald]

Soo... I guess Riot's already forgotten about team siren? I mean, I don't blame him, and I don't think they're around anymore, but there still was a all girl "pro" team in the annals of history.

Team Siren was a joke. And no, not because they were women. Because they were upper gold trying to pretend they were challenger. It was embarrassing.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

This won't happen without a sponsor pushing for it, otherwise why reduce your recruitment pool?

 

[Risingblade]

The reason there isn't already a female pro team is because there aren't that many challenger level females. So that limits the pool of candidates, now you have to find 5 females who get along and have team chemistry which shrinks the pool even lower. Of course these women also have to be willing to play league for hours everyday and make the investment to move into team home. It's hard becoming a pro team so the lack of females teams make sense.

 

[Ukomba]

Probably, anything that can happen, will happen if given enough time.

I'm confused about Korea's girls only tournament, is this kind of pro-segregation stance being viewed as positive or negative right now? I can never keep up with the current fad.

 

[KazeAizen]

The reason there isn't already a female pro team is because there aren't that many challenger level females. So that limits the pool of candidates, now you have to find 5 females who get along and have team chemistry which shrinks the pool even lower. Of course these women also have to be willing to play league for hours everyday and make the investment to move into team home. It's hard becoming a pro team so the lack of females teams make sense.

Still though you have to admit its kind of refreshing that Riot is taking the stance of. "We just assume it will happen eventually since there is literally no reason for it not too." Artificially pushing things can hurt it sometimes but if this were say Ubisoft or EA they would come up with something along the lines of "We never considered it because our demographic and the main demographic for this particular has shown to be males...." With something further stupid added onto that that I can't think of because I actually have a soul and a brain.

 

[jFr[e]ak93]

I still don't understand why e-sports titles have 'female only' leagues.

I mean, in certain sports, it makes sense because of the inherent physical difference between the average male vs the average female.

But no such advantage is present when it comes to competitive gaming.

If there are good enough female players/teams, they will rise through the ranks and earn their way.

This - It's all reflexes and brains. Why do we need an all girl team? It just seems "Hey! Look! We have teams of women!"
Add some girls that CAN play professionally to existing teams.

 

[blackrave]

I like how those "progressive" people are being sexist themselves.
Oh, girls could never compete with boys, so let's make girl-only tournament.

Probably, anything that can happen, will happen if given enough time.

I'm confused about Korea's girls only tournament, is this kind of pro-segregation stance being viewed as positive or negative right now? I can never keep up with the current fad.

I'm pretty sure for last few decades creating such events are viewed in positive light by general public.

 

[Ukomba]

I like how those "progressive" people are being sexist themselves.
Oh, girls could never compete with boys, so let's make girl-only tournament.

Probably, anything that can happen, will happen if given enough time.

I'm confused about Korea's girls only tournament, is this kind of pro-segregation stance being viewed as positive or negative right now? I can never keep up with the current fad.

I'm pretty sure for last few decades creating such events are viewed in positive light by general public.

Wasn't there hearthstone tournament, or something, that was gender segregated that was ripped on recently?

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

While I agree that girl/women only teams (and worse, girl only tournaments) is not really the answer there is a number of issues with having a woman in a majority male team, such as...

Training houses, a woman would be a distraction at the least and could cause a huge issue or rifts in the team, and even on a small scale force a change in the environment that may lead to enmity between the team members (take down the pin ups , watch the language, certain TV channels being taboo I would imagine).

Lautemortis (or however that's spelt) never had problems any problems with his teammates, and he was super gay. I think the problem will be much less substantial than you would think.

Relationships may bloom between members, causing jealousy and resentment from the other members not in the relationship.

I imagine this could be handled the same as it would in any other workplace, make it grounds for removal. Teams have dropped members over less already.

Accusations of abusing her gender ("flashing her tits") if she should get larger viewer numbers on the streams.

I doubt that guys who regularly stream shirtless to attract more viewers would give a damn.

It is a pity, I personally prefer gamers to be about games and be able to just class all those who game as simply gamers rather than male female, black white, straight gay... simply gamers.

So would I. But we aren't there yet.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

If it happens it won't be right off the bat. To make it to championships you actually have to win games. If you put together a team based on anything other than pure skill, you're going to lose. Putting together an all female team is a gimmick. It's not to say you can't find 5 good female players to put on a team, but chances are if you're looking to serve the gimmick first and foremost you're not going to get the best team you can. At least one or two of them will be "good enough" but not professional level good, and if your whole entire team isn't up to snuff you're not going to make it to the pros.

Female players would have to trickle into pro teams. Once you've got 20-30 female players operating in the professional scene you can probably pry 5 of them out of their teams to make a fresh one.

Also I like how Rito don't acknowledge the fucking disaster that was team siren, the all girl "pro" league team that was shamelessly about the gimmick and crashed and burned horribly. That's probably better for everyone honestly.

 

[Kyber]

Why women only? Why not just have the men and the women on the same team?

Sad to say this but team synergy. Women can easily be seen as a distraction; in Korea, the major teams won't allow the players to date unless they win OGN, imagine what they would think of a woman on the team? The same could be probably go for gay players in the same team.

 

[Denamic]

All female teams should happen, but they should occur naturally and not as some sort of spectacle. Going out of your way to put together an all female team, or even all female tournaments is not how the gender gap in esports should be addressed. You don't get equality through sexism.

 

[Nurb]

I don't see the need for enforcement of segregated teams with a game that relies on mental ability and problem solving rather than pure physical performance.

I find the generalizations that women need to be protected from men rather insulting, as if they're a second class unable to handle competitive environments.