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AP study: Nearly 90% of esports scholarships going to men

meanspartan

meanspartan

Member
From the article:

"Male gamers held 90.4% of roster spots and received 88.5% of scholarship funds in a sample of 27 public American schools surveyed by the AP during this school year. The glaring gender disparity exists even though 41% of U.S. gamers are female, according to the Entertainment Software Association, and in a realm where — unlike traditional sports — there are no physical barriers separating male and female competitors."

While I'm sure improvements can be made, my anecdotal experience makes me not buy that 41% figure at all. It must include casual mobile gaming to get to that figure. Nothing wrong with playing mobile games, but obviously it's a very different thing then the hardcore-level gaming required to make it in e-sports. If we were able to take some survey of everyone playing an online shooter (or what have you) today, I bet the amount who are women would be way below 41%.

EDIT - forgot to link the article itself -

apnews.com

AP study: Nearly 90% of esports scholarships going to men

Colleges and universities rushing to invest in the booming arena of varsity esports are overwhelmingly committing opportunities and scholarships to male players, according to data collected by The Associated Press.
apnews.com apnews.com
 
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MightySquirrel

MightySquirrel

Banned
meanspartan said:
unlike traditional sports — there are no physical barriers separating male and female competitors
Click to expand...

but just like in regular sports a female competitor has to outperform males to make a team.

edit: :messenger_tears_of_joy: I meant a competitor has to outperform other competitor in sports to make a team. Obv no female would make men's team, that's why we have separate leagues for women and that's fine.
 
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DeepEnigma

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
And this will be a "problem."

I bet the scholarship numbers would be the same or greater for men if colligate sports got rid of sex based separation. All one league whether it be soccer or basketball and the like, probably a 99.9/.01 clip based on actual merit.

Truth hurts the fee fees.
 
Topher

Topher

Gold Member
The answers are right there in the link to the demographics.

JO_2020-ESA_Essential_facts_070820_Final15-791x1024.jpg


77% of woman in the age group play games on smart phones. Most prefer to play alone. Not exactly stats that scream "esports".

2020 Essential Facts About the Video Game Industry (theesa.com)
 
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Dick Jones

Dick Jones

Gold Member
41%.. fuck off with that. Yeah that 30 minutes a day on Candy Crush should give you a scholarship to beat Daigo in Street Fighter.

It's good that more women are playing games than when Dick Jr started playing video games. There are more than 10% of women playing games but not over 20% but we need to get them more involved.

My figure is based off my interactions playing multiplayer. The margin of error is 80%
 
Fbh

Fbh

Member
Some very broad "% of gamers by gender" metric that probably puts all types of games and all types of players in the same pot is meaningless.

Remove everyone who isn't frequently playing these Esport type games, now remove everyone that isn't putting in the hours to actually be competitive on a pro level, now remove everyone that despite putting in the hours just doesn't have the skills to make it into a pro team. That's the metric that should be relevant and I'm going to make a wild guess and say it's probably not 40% female.

Hell, with around 10% of scholarships going to women I wouldn't even be surprised if they are over represented compared to the overall pool of people that would qualify.
 
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Kamina

Kamina

Golden Boy
We cant simply accept this.
We need to force a minimum 50% famale Esports players.
We also need to force a minimum 25% trans Esports players.
We furthermore need to force a minimum 15% Queer Esports players.

D👏I👏V👏E👏R👏S👏I👏T👏Y👏
 
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worldwithpyramids

worldwithpyramids

Member
I can think of like three competitive women players. The one who won the Hearthstone championship, that one Overwatch Zarya player, and some girl who plays Fortnite I think.

As soon as more women compete on that level then the scholarships will go up. I’m not saying women can’t compete on that level. I just don’t think they‘re as interested in similar numbers.
 
R

RyRy93

Member
Maybe because men seem to be better at games than women for whatever reason?

Look at the top of any leaderboards, it's filled with dudes
 
Woo-Fu

Woo-Fu

Banned
Wait, e-sports scholarships?

aaron paul what GIF by Breaking Bad


It's never been socially acceptable, in America at least, to spend the amount of time playing videogames it requires to be one of the best. Young men are more likely to not give a shit about that than young women.
 
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MightySquirrel

MightySquirrel

Banned
And from what I heard orgs actually salivating about the potential exposure female players could bring, but sadly everytime one is given a chance in scrims they are getting curb stomped.
 
worldwithpyramids

worldwithpyramids

Member
Like look at speed runners. I was always interested in how few women speed runners there seemed to be. I remember searching years ago in Google for a list or something and there was a site that had a list like “20 women speed runners.” EVERY SINGLE ONE WAS TRANS EXCEPT FOR ONE. And the one that wasn’t trans was the exact one I already knew (Sayvi).
 
Varteras

Varteras

Gold Member
Well sure it's a majority of men. Because they are the gender most likely to pursue a career in competitive e-sports by a very large margin. I raid in World of Warcraft. We have 30 people who run with us regularly. Out of those 30 regulars, 3 of them are women. E-sports in World of Warcraft is dominated by men despite women being a huge portion of the playerbase. In my personal life I know zero women who play video games to the extent the men I know do. I work in a department of 19 people of which only 2 are men. The 17 women? None of them play video games. The men? Only I do. Nothing is keeping women from competing in e-sports. The fact is very few of them pursue it and those who do are usually nowhere near as good as the male competitors. Some of the most notable "female e-sports players" are actually men. Ricky Ortiz and Gilty from the fighting game community? Both former males. Scarlett from the StarCraft leagues? Former male. It's not that women suck or can't possibly compete. Again, it's that the vast majority simply don't and the ones that do don't end up being as good. Most women just don't experience the competitive edge that men understand. Likely a result of thousands of years of conditioning. But I'm sure this is somehow completely institutionalized sexism and we need to get to the bottom of it because how dare we allow women to choose not to compete or allow them to suck at it comparatively.
 
HTK

HTK

Banned
I've seen quite a few women teams compete in CS:GO in a lot of those tournaments, they just never make it to the top. That could be due to a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with their gender. As long as the tournaments/competitions are open to ALL that's all that matters.
 
Mitsuda Maniac

Mitsuda Maniac

Member
Plenty of girl gamers would kick my ass at any game I consider myself good at, Im sure. Still they don't compete on average the same as guys and pretending they do is kinda pathetic
 
MightySquirrel

MightySquirrel

Banned
HTK said:
I've seen quite a few women teams compete in CS:GO in a lot of those tournaments, they just never make it to the top. That could be due to a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with their gender. As long as the tournaments/competitions are open to ALL that's all that matters.
Click to expand...
I think that is where the actual issue lies. Make seperate league for women, because they obv can't compete, so that way they would get more funding.
 
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meanspartan

meanspartan

Member
MightySquirrel said:
And from what I heard orgs actually salivating about the potential exposure female players could bring, but sadly everytime one is given a chance in scrims they are getting curb stomped.
Click to expand...
Ya that's the thing. These sorts of articles are meant to not so subtly imply sexism, but the orgs would love nothing more than to have a ton of women as stars.

As others have commented, the fact that the closest they can get (for the most part) is trans people is pretty telling.
 
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meanspartan

meanspartan

Member
Fuz said:
Now remove mobile gaming and facebook games.
Because you're counting my mother and my aunt too.
Click to expand...
Ya, my wife isn't super into gaming, but will enjoy the occasional overcooked or snipperclips game with me.

Give her esports money pls.
 
MightySquirrel

MightySquirrel

Banned
Mitsuda Maniac said:
Plenty of girl gamers would kick my ass at any game I consider myself good at, Im sure. Still they don't compete on average the same as guys and pretending they do is kinda pathetic
Click to expand...
Yep. There's a few female players even in pubg like Danucd that could kick my but I'm sure :messenger_grinning_sweat: , but sadly even good players like her can't compete with pros.
 
Skifi28

Skifi28

Member
Nobody's stopping female gamers from being at the top if they have the skills. If they don't choose this path or if they're not good enough, so fucking what?


Oh who am I kidding, it's all about gender equality. They'll probably amputate men so we can bring that % where it has to be.


Edit: Brings to mind that embarassment of an esports team they cobbled together for proving women are just as good or whatever that lost every single game they ever played and became the laughing stock of the scene. Can't remember the name unfortunately.
 
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Arkam

Arkam

Member
That’s a pretty dumb article. It’s presenting and comparing random data and not giving you all the details.

What does 88.5% of scholarships at 27 schools have to do with the 41% of US gamers being female? Are these 27 schools demographically identical to the national averages? What percent of the applicants for said scholarships where female?

I mean it’s impossible to have an opinion without these details. It’s like saying “OMG there are no women accepted into Alpha Chi Delta last semester!!!!” And omit the fact that is a fraternity and that no women tried to join.
 
Revolutionary

Revolutionary

Member
The article actually does state the fact that women are more likely to play mobile games, but it's nearly at the end of the article and at the very end of a paragraph.
“League of Legends” is a staple of collegiate esports programs, as are male-dominated “Madden” and “Call of Duty.” " Overwatch ” — a game whose cover character is a gay woman — has a slightly better ratio of women to men and is also popular. Collins would like to see schools try games like “Just Dance,” “Mario Kart” or something from the fighting genre. Girls and women are also more likely to play mobile games.
Click to expand...
Burying the lede, anyone?
 
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