Women in Esports: A Look at the Gap Between Male and Female Players

Women make up almost half of the gaming population, yet they hold only a small fraction of competitive and professional roles in esports. The disparity becomes even more pronounced at the upper echelons, where the highest-earning women in esports don't even crack the top 600 all-time earners list. ## The Earnings Gap The earnings gap between male and female esports players is staggering. According to Esports Earnings data, the top 40 highest-paid men have pulled in a combined $168.27 million in tournament winnings, compared to about $4.11 million for the comparable group of top female players. This works out to roughly $4.21 million in prize money per male player versus about $100,188 per female player - a gap of more than 42 times. However, the disparity is not just limited to the top earners. Even when looking at the broader esports scene, women-only tournaments account for only a fraction of the prize pools. For example, in 2024, Esports Charts recorded more than 6,700 esports tournaments, but women-only events accounted for just 3% of the entire ecosystem. ## Opportunities Available to Women in Esports The earnings gap makes even more sense after considering that female-only esports represent a much smaller share of the esports calendar. In 2024, Esports Charts recorded that only 15 esports titles hosted women's tournaments at all, and in most of those titles, they represented just under 5% of the competitive calendar. Even in games with established women's scenes, such as VALORANT, women-only competitions represented only 23.9% of its tournaments and 13.8% of its total prize pool. In Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, those figures fell to 11.7% and 9.1%, while Counter-Strike accounted for just 5.3% of tournaments and 2.7% of prize money. ## The Audience Gap is Even Wider The disparity becomes even more pronounced when we look at viewership. Despite VALORANT having the most developed women's esports scene, its women-only tournaments accounted for only 5.6% of total watch time in 2024. That number dropped to 1.3% for MLBB and only 0.2% for Counter-Strike. Across the entire women's esports ecosystem, viewership fell by 26% that year. This matters because prize money does not exist in isolation. Larger audiences make tournaments more commercially valuable to publishers, sponsors, and organizers, thereby supporting more lucrative prize pools and more events. On the other hand, smaller audiences can leave women's competitions fighting for investment even when competitive structures already exist. ## Are Women Really That Bad at Esports? A 2026 study published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications looked at the relationship between gender, performance, viewership, and prize money in Counter-Strike. The researchers compared player data from the ESL Impact League, an elite women-only Counter-Strike league, with that of a comparable men's league. They used HLTV match records and Twitch viewership data across 40 tournaments and over 3,000 individual player performances. One measure used by the researchers was kill-to-death ratio, or KD. The average male KD was 1.02, compared with 0.97 for females, reflecting a small but statistically meaningful difference in the dataset. However, after statistically accounting for performance, the researchers found that women's matches received about 4.7 million fewer average views per match than men's. Moreover, playing well didn't pay off the same way for both groups: stronger performance translated into more views and more prize money for men far more reliably than it did for women. ## What Happens Before an Esports Player Goes Pro? A player cannot become a professional esports player if they never get far enough to compete for that spot. This sounds obvious, but it changes the question. Instead of asking only why there aren't more women at the top, it is worth asking what happens to players on the way there. Research on women in gaming repeatedly points to the role of the environment. A 2021 study by Reach3 Insights and Lenovo surveyed 900 women gamers across the United States, China, and Germany. It found that 77% had experienced frustration related to their gender while gaming. The most commonly reported experiences included judgments about skill, gatekeeping, and patronizing comments. Perhaps the most striking number is that 59% of respondents said they used a non-gendered or male identity while playing online to avoid conflict. ## Can Women-Only Esports Tournaments Help? This is one reason women's esports leagues exist in the first place. VALORANT Game Changers and the now-defunct ESL Impact were not created simply because women cannot play against men. Instead, these circuits provide additional competitive pathways for female players to compete, build teams, gain experience, and become more visible to audiences and organizations. Better still, there is some evidence that this approach can actually help. A 2023 study by Nolla and colleagues found that novice women gamers who participated in women-only esports tournaments reported higher levels of enjoyment and motivation compared to those who played in mixed-gender tournaments. This suggests that women-only esports tournaments can provide a more supportive and inclusive environment for female players, which can help to address the disparities in the esports industry. The esports industry has a long way to go in terms of addressing the disparities between male and female players. However, by providing additional competitive pathways and more inclusive environments, women's esports leagues can help to level the playing field and provide more opportunities for female players to succeed.