New York Excelsior rebuilds roster with marginalized gender players, faces massive community backlash

The New York Excelsior (NYXL) has revealed through multiple sources, their intentions for 2023 is to create an Overwatch League (OWL) team comprised of marginalized genders. While on the surface, it appears well-intentioned, sources familiar and closer to the scene have come out calling it little more than a PR stunt. Criticisms have flooded in against NYXL, stating that the creation of such a team, performs nothing but a disservice to the very people they are trying to uplift.

NYXL has always been a staple of the OWL community and one of the fan-favourite teams to watch. In years gone by, they held contending titles, especially in 2018, where they placed 1st or 2nd at nearly every event they attended. They have always fielded strong players, such as Seonghyun “JJoNak” Bang, Dohyeon “Pine” Kim and Hongjun “HOTBA” Choi, and consistently looked like one of the best teams of the season.

However, in recent times, the team and organization has fallen into disrepute. By 2020, the star-power driven roster was starting to fade. They went from a 3rd place finish in 2019’s regular season and Playoffs to 7th in the regular season in 2020. That was followed by 14th in 2021’s regular season and now in 2022, 19th place. There are 20 teams in the OWL.

Calling all Heroes?

According to the reports, representatives from NYXL have allegedly reached out to high-skilled and performing players of underrepresented genders. Most of these players recently played in the Calling All Heroes Challengers Cup qualifiers tournament.

Calling all Heroes is an inclusivity initiative by Blizzard Entertainment in collaboration with the Overwatch League to create tournaments and competing opportunities for marginalized genders. After two qualifiers in Oct and Nov, the finals will be held on Dec 11, including the top four teams from each qualifier.

Viewership for qualifier matches peaked at some of the OWL games, leading to impressions that the initiative was a success. Within the OWL, players who did not identify as cisgender males were few and far between. Players from underrepresented genders have only had brief stints within the League.

Community Concerns/Criticms

With NYXL now attempting to field a full OWL team comprised of underrepresented genders, many have criticised the organization for capitalising on current interest in the players. Many within the scene have cited their concerns that there are not enough tier 1 marginalized gender talents to field an OWL-level roster.

Because of the lack of development, the project comes off instead as a concept rather than a roster constructed on skill, boding disaster. Former contenders player and current streamer Chassidy “Aramori” Kaye speaks up on behalf of some of the approached players who wished to remain anonymous.

[twitter url="https://twitter.com/Aramori_OW/status/1597083810234974214"]

‘There are few if any OWL-level players who are also a marginalized gender,’ she writes. She continues, ‘In actual competition, the roster will struggle, and struggle DEARLY, think season 1 Shanghai Dragons.’ Her main concern highlighted stems from the fact that such a project may ‘confirm biases that the community may already have towards marginalized genders making it that much harder for them to actually succeed.’

She also refers to Maria “Remilia” Creveling, a professional League of Legends who was also the first transgender and woman to compete in the NA LCS. She played for Renegades briefly before caving to on-stage pressure and online harassment. “Remilia” lost her life at the age of 24. “Aramori” speak on the potential hate as well, with the idea of them ‘being under a microscope from Day 1…eyes watching their every move…blaming them for being in the scene.

Should NYXL continue with this project, it is likely to have negative repercussions for the scene and OWL at large.

Image credit: New York Excelsior