Riot Games launches first all-women League of Legends tournament Rising Stars

Riot Games announced its first all-woman League Of Legends tournament titled Rising Stars, scheduled to launch this November.

The tournament organized in collaboration with GGTEch and NUEL is the first standalone tournament for women who want to compete in League of Legends professionally.

With this new initiative, Riot aims to promote inclusion and more opportunities in esports. However, it is unclear whether transgender people will be eligible to register for the competition as well, as the developer’s official statement reads that participating teams will be composed of women who are at least 16 years old. 

Schedule and prize pool

Registration for Rising Stars is currently underway and it will be open until November 22. The tournament is reportedly meant for players from the Northern European region, however, all players from Europe are eligible to participate. The inaugural Rising Stars event is scheduled to take place from November 26-27, with a prize pool of £3,000.

Registration Verification

Even though the kind of gender verification that will take place during the registration remains uncertain, it is known that Riot has an agreement with DiVe, an organization promoting gender diversity in esports. Riot Games added that:

“In particular, DivE will ask you to show on webcam documents as proof of your eligibility. DivE will not keep any record of the documents used to verify your age, gender, and residency.”

Will Attwood, Competitive Experiences Manager at Riot Games, commented:

“Riot Games is committed to creating more opportunities for women gamers. Game Changers has been a huge success for VALORANT and will continue to expand into other games.

“Rising Stars, as a local, standalone tournament, is another example of the work that we and our partners can do to promote diversity and inclusion in the esports community. The fact that we’re also able to support students taking their first professional steps in the industry is the cherry on top.”

As a part of Riot Games’ efforts to nurture the inclusivity of women in esports, Riot started a similar all-women series back in 2021 for VALORANT. The tournament known as VALORANT Game Changers saw quite a big success in the first two years of its existence, and it is speculated that the development of Rising Stars will be based on this initiative.

With the Valorant Game Changers set to host its first global LAN event next week, it is now considered a legitimate esports circuit that runs alongside VALORANT Champions Tour. If Riot finds a way to build Rising Stars similarly to Game Changers, it would mark another huge step towards gender inclusivity and diversity in esports. 

North America Challengers League

Riot has also recently introduced a new North America Challengers League, which will replace the LCS Academy and the Providing Ground tournament. Set to take effect in 2023, the league will hold qualifiers each split.

All Challengers League players will be under a new Notification of Interest system, which will allow LCS teams to easily submit their interest in a player who is contracted to another team.

Header: Riot Games