Team Unikrn Is Competing in an All-Female Tournament with 32 Other Entrants.
Unikrn unveiled its first attempt at team ownership last week, announcing an all-female competitive eSports team to compete in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The 5-member team includes woman from four different European countries: The United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Greece.
Team Unikrn was created in conjunction with the Australian gambling companies, Tabcorp and Luxbet. The team is expected to compete in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive circuit, which is one of the most popular eSports games. CS: GO is the fourth in the Counter-Strike series, a first-person shooter game designed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve Corporation.
Asian All-Female eSports Teams
The Team Unikrn announcement follows a trend in eSports. In June 2015, the all-female Hong Kong-based eSports team, Girls HK, launched. In August 2010, the South China Morning Post publicized a match between Girls HK and its Taiwanese counterpart, Logi-A. Both teams also compete in League of Legends events.
Rahul Sood, the founder of Unikrn and the former GM of Microsoft Ventures, had been contemplating this decision for months. In May 2015, Mr. Sood made an open call for a male-dominated League of Legends teams to take on a female member. He offered to fund any team which did, because he wanted to show women could compete in eSports. Likely, he also hoped to expand his sports’ fan base.
What Is Unikrn?
Unikrn is an online betting service for eSports which was founded by Rahul Sood and Karl Flores. The site allows gamblers in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Ireland to bet on video game tournaments involving top games like League of Legends, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Gamblers can wager as much as $250 per contest.
At present, eSports betting is illegal in the United States, though Unikrn is based in Seattle and started to allow US play in September 2015. American players cannot wager real money, but instead play for “Unikoins”, a kind of virtual currency which is only useful on the Unikrn platform. Players can spend the Unikoins on the Unikrn Marketplace. They can enter raffles to win items like headsets, Gunnar gaming glasses, and even gaming PCs.
Legalization in the USA
Even though real money gaming doesn’t take place, Unikrn is a growing business with major upside in the US market. In September, actor Ashton Kutcher said he had invested in Unikrn. People might think eSports could never be that popular as a spectator sport, but it is. So far, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments have given out $7.5 million in prize money. Sweden appears to dominate the competitions, which nearly $2 million handed out to Swedish players. It is not the only circuit, though. Esports has events for FIFA16, Call of Duty 4, Enemy Territory, and Heroes of the Storm.
Bryce Blum, the counsel for Unikrn, says that the Unikoins are a way to build a customer base for the time when eSports is legal in the United States. Mr. Blum says the day will come when US authorities embrace betting online. He said, “It’s a question of when, not if. Hundreds of billions of dollars are illegally wagered on sports in the US every year. Making it illegal doesn’t stop people from betting. It simply diminishes the ability for interested parties to regulate the industry and safeguard competitive integrity.”
Sood Hopes to Integrate eSports
Rahul Sood quit a high-level job with Microsoft to follow that vision. Obviously, Rahul Sood, who gained rave reviews in 2012 and 2013 for fostering Microsoft’s social media presence, thinks outside the box. Sood feels like women need a voice in eSports, which is why he founded CS:GO. Of his new gaming team, he said, “I’ve always been a big advocate for women in technology, and since we started Unikrn we’ve been actively looking to promote women in professional eSports. We took months to scout the best female competitive CS:GO players in the world to build Team Unikrn.”
CSGO Female Masters 2015
The team will compete in the upcoming all-female tournament called the CSGO Female Masters 2015. The team includes Camilla “Parmaviolet” Hart from the United Kingdom, Sophia “Kim” Benfakir and Perrine “Lalita” Allesiardo of France, Julia “Julie” Strunkowski of Germany, and Melania “Gina” Mylioti of Greece. A list of the teams participating in the upcoming event shows how many top-level females already compete in eSports.
33 different all-female teams have signed up to compete. Exotic team names like Playing-Ducks e.V. Female, Euronics Gaming, and Alientech Female dot the list of competitors. Then there are the funny or defiant names which stand out, like “Make a Sandwich Yourself”, Just P!NK, and myRevenge Female.
Thus, all-female eSports is a growing niche within a growing industry. Rahul Sood says the point isn’t to create a female circuit, like one would see in pro tennis or pro golf.
Rahul Sood on Female Gamers
Mr. Sood believes woman can compete in the men’s circuit, if given the opportunity and the technical support. He said, “In an ideal world, we’d see both men and women competing on the same teams, with and against each other, that’s the future of eSports. Team Unikrn is all about professional competition and hopefully it inspires other women to take the step and build a career around eSports.”
Neda Samimi on Opportunities for Women
Neda Samimi, the woman hired to manage Team Unikrn, agrees. Samimi sees the current state of affairs as a necessary stepping stone, until women can prove the belong playing with the big boys. She said, “Although there are no impossible barriers for women to get into professional gaming, the communities tend to be male dominated, online bullying is everywhere and sexism does exist. Knowing this, the broader community is very supportive of women in gaming, and I’m excited that Unikrn is using our platform to help create opportunities for female gamers.”
The path to full integration is going to take some time. Though no physical barrier should keep women from competing, many men in eSports see it as an intrusion, anyway. Perhaps because gaming began as an escape for most players, they don’t want to see the cares and concerns of the real world invade their virtual community. The time will come when eSports is integrated, and betting on eSports is legal in the United States.
