Esports

On the topic of gendered spaces, I've noticed that esports tend to lean towards males.  Every major professional competitive team is made up of guys.  In fact, all major tournaments over the course of the year only feature the top male teams in the world.  Of course, there are quite a few female teams out there, but their matches don't get streamed or even if they do, barely anyone watches.  Now I'm not as to why this is; it could be because of the skill gap or sexism in general.

Lets take Counter-Strike for example.  In a year, there are about 20 majors hosted around the world. In these tournaments, 16 teams face off coming from various countries.  It should be noted however, that out of 20 tournaments, only one is dedicated to female gaming, and it's host isn't as well known as the others. It was only until 2015 that a female tournament with a prize pool of $30,000 was announced. $30,000 may seem like a lot, but compared to other majors, who have prize pools of up to 1.5 million dollars, it's definitely not.

Only $5K for first????

I've seen some matches played out between female teams, and I do see a slight skill gap.  But those players still are pros and match some of the best players on the well known teams.  Also in my preference, watching the same top teams compete against each other does get boring from time to time.  Many star plays do come out from the top players, but it's kind of at a point where watchers expect highlight moments out of them.  Adding a number of new talents into the mix would definitely make games more interesting.  Hopefully, female gaming will rise in popularity to match that of male gaming.