Riot Games is considering adding a women’s League of Legends global esports circuit, similar to its Valorant Game Changers initiative.
Esports News UK sources said that such a move was discussed internally by Riot a little while back, but today’s announcement that G2 Esports have signed a women’s League of Legends team has taken the idea forward.
We’ve been told a women’s circuit is happening, but the timing of the launch of the league has not been set in stone yet, however.
Separate to a global circuit, Riot is also considering adding other isolated tournaments for female players, but plans around these are still in the works.
Currently there is no official global women’s League of Legends circuit by Riot Games. There have been a few third-party women-only LoL tournaments over the years, such as FemaleLegends at DreamHack, ESWC Paris, and more recently the GirlGamer Oradea Festival EU LoL tournament. This was won by the roster that later signed to G2 and will include a world final set to take place in early 2023, but it’s not an official women’s Worlds tournament.
Update – on September 20th 2022, Riot announced the Ignis Cup, the first professional women’s League of Legends circuit in Brazil, with Santander and Heineken on board as partners and in-person finals announced.
There was also previously a transgender-focused League of Legends tournament in Brazil.
There’s also a Wild Rift Wild Circuit: Game Changers women’s tournament too for the mobile version of League of Legends.
In the UK, at a student level, there are also NUEL’s Women and Non-Binary university tournaments in League of Legends and Valorant.
In North America, Riot’s LCS previously introduced a Game Changers initiative, but this is more workshop and mentorship focused rather than a competitive tournament series (though there was a one-off competitive bootcamp event). In November 2021, Riot told Jessica Scharnagle in this article for Nerd Street why the LCS program was not publicised like Valorant Game Changers is, saying that Riot “doesn’t want women to feel pressure or toxicity publicly”. Riot has also announced women’s initiatives in Brazil.
Sources said that Game Changers coming to EU League of Legends in particular is something that has ‘definitely’ been discussed further and may be likelier than ever following the G2 announcement.
One point of contention that may have prevented such a circuit from being developed and announced so far is that whether the MENA region would be involved, with any potential finals in the Middle East making it difficult for LGBTQ+ players to compete.
In July, Rocket League team Moist Esports declined to play at Saudi’s GWB event, with UK coach Noah vowing “not to associate with a country that doesn’t recognise LGBTQ+ people as human beings”.
Riot’s Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) Game Changers women’s circuit was first launched in North America in early 2021, and was added to the EMEA region following its success. Back in May 2022, G2 Gozen won a record three VCT Game Changers tournaments in a row, beating UK org Guild again in the final.
It’s also worth mentioning there have been difficulties with Riot verifying non-binary players in EMEA: VCT Game Changers EU currently prevents non-binary players from competing, and that could be the same for League as well.
This week , UK esports organisations LDN UTD and Resolve announced they were withdrawing from women’s League of Legends due to a lack of developer support and tournaments.
Resolve operations director Jeff Simpkins said: “A dissapointing decision to have to make. Such a lack of support by Riot and tournament organisers generally for the women’s scene in League of Legends right now.”
LDN UTD CEO Olly Weingarten said similar comments in this clip.
Perhaps now they may reconsider.
Reaction including comment from Riot Games: ‘We value diversity in esports and plan to continue to build and test more programs in 2023’
Riot Games sent the following comment to Esports News UK following the publication of this article: “Riot Games values diversity in the esports ecosystem. We are extremely proud of our Valorant Game Changers esports program, and eagerly anticipate our first-ever global event in Berlin in mid-November.
“Concurrently, many LoL Esports leagues around the world have been executing and further developing diversity programs to make professional competitive League of Legends more accessible to more players. We plan to continue to build and test more programs next year with aspirations to expand to more globally integrated systems in the future.
“We applaud G2’s recent move into this space, which shows their dedication and commitment to their esports program and the League community, and look forward to continuing to partner with them on their initiatives.”
“We plan to continue to build and test more programs next year with aspirations to expand to more globally integrated systems in the future.”
Riot Games
William ‘Kaiprioska’ Roche, product manager at European Regional League NLC, told Esports News UK (from a personal perspective, not representing the NLC): “I’ve always been a massive advocate of trying to help bring in more women through the industry. As somebody who was involved in the female scene previously and who has understood some of the many barriers that they face on a regular basis when trying to break into esports, finally having a dedicated league that puts League of Legends on par with other esports is a massive step forward for our industry and will hopefully translate into a better environment for more women to turn their passion into a career!”
H2K founder Richard Wells previously said it’s a big goal of his for 2022 to start work to help get more female LoL players competing at the top level, and this comment on the LoL subreddit claims Rich mentioned he was working with Riot for a female League scene. We’ve reached out to Rich for clarification.
He added in a tweet: “New tournaments for female LoL is all well and good so long as we don’t look past what the real goal is – women playing with men. It might be the case that ultimately we will need the segregation anyway, but it would be absolutely criminal not to try.
“I’ve already seen women do in League what is not remotely possible in some sports. Compete with men relatively near the top. There’s no way we’re close to the ceiling for girls yet. This is a potentially world bending opportunity that we can’t mess up.”
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
