The Equal eSports Cup is a League of Legends tournament series for women and non-binary talent. The final of the cup will take place in August at Gamescom 2024 in Cologne.
The Equal eSports Cup is a joint movement of the DACH eSports scene and was initiated by RIOT, Deutsche Telekom, SK Gaming and the esports player foundation (epf). The cup is intended to give women and non-binary players a platform to showcase their skills and establish themselves in professional eSports. In this sense, the EEC acts as a scouting ground for eSports organizations to discover more women and non-binary talent for future rosters.

8 women/non-binary teams are invited to the Equal eSports Cup. These teams are provided by established eSports organizations. In addition, it was very important to us to be able to include those teams that we have not yet been able to contact or who have only played privately. For this reason, all women/non-binary teams can also register for the Open Qualifier. By participating in the Open Qualifier, the 2 best teams qualify to take part in the subsequent league phase, which can ultimately lead to participation in the offline finals.

The 8 invited teams are from established eSports organizations. They include: SK Avarosa, BDS Valkyries, G2 Hel, NNOWO (No Need Orga), MAD Lions KOI, Solary Académie, TEAM GO Aurora and Vitality French Bees.

Indeed you can! If you a) didn't manage to apply for one of the professional teams or if you b) prefer to play in your own team, you can register yourself or your team here. You are still missing a player? No problem! On our Discord server you can look for missing team members or join a searching team.

The open qualifier will kick off on April 27th, 2024 and April 28th, 2024, where 2 teams can qualify for the 9-match league phase in addition to the teams already invited.

The league phase begins with the first match day on May 3rd, 2024 and ends on August 3rd, 2024.

The 2 best teams in the league phase qualify directly for the offline semi-finals (2nd placed team) and the final (1st placed team) at Gamescom.

The playoffs for the third-placed to sixth-placed teams in the league phase will take place on August 4th, 2024. The winner of these playoffs qualifies for the offline semi-finals at Gamescom.

You can of course follow the league phase and the big offline final in the live stream. The broadcast takes place via the epf Twitch channel Twitch channel of the epf.

First of all, all talents have to verify themselves, this also includes those of the invitational teams, unless they have already verified themselves at the EEC 2023. In addition to the common identification of the persons, we unfortunately also have to deal with the identification of the gender, because only women and non-binary persons are allowed to participate in the EEC. Of course, persons in the process of transition to women are also included.
The topic of gender identification is -understandably- for many people a very private and emotional matter. Therefore, the feel-good factor during the verification is very important to us. All participants are verified by an external agency that is specialized in our topic. The agency treats all players empathetically and with tact. However, we are prepared in case someone has unpleasant intentions. The Equal eSports Cup is and remains a safe space.
We do not want to explicitly go into the exact procedure in order not to create loopholes. All teams that register will of course be informed. It is simply a matter of avoiding people who would like to exploit our Cup.

Each team consisting of 5 players (women and non-binary people) has the opportunity to register for the Open Qualifier on April 27th, 2024 and April 28th, 2024. The 2 best teams from the Open Qualifier qualify for the league phase, which begins on May 3rd, 2024.

Register your team for the Open Qualifier:

Our partner agency will then take care of verifying your team.
Important: Please keep an eye on the deadline for registering for the Open Qualifier! The registration deadline is stated on the registration form.

May 3rd, 2024 Matchday 1
May 4th, 2024 Matchday 2
May 5th, 2024 Matchday 3
June 1st, 2024 Matchday 4
June 2nd, 2024 Matchday 5
July 13th 2024 Matchday 6
July 14th 2024 Matchday 7
August 2nd 2024 Matchday 8
August 3rd 2024 Matchday 9 + tiebreaker

Playoffs:
08/04/2024

Finals:
tbd. Gamescom

The Equal eSports Cup is a joint project of RIOT, epf and SK Gaming, sponsored by Deutsche Telekom.

First of all, the teams gain one thing above all: a stage for their skills, belonging in a male-dominated pro player scene, notoriety and recognition.

Apart from that, we have of course also provided prize money:
(1.) 5000€ (2.) 2500€ (3.) 1750€ (4.) 750€

The winning team will also receive our Equal eSports Cup trophy.

The 2 best teams in the league phase qualify directly for the offline semi-finals (2nd placed team) and the final (1st placed team) at Gamescom as well as the winner of the playoffs of the third to sixth placed teams in the league phase on August 4th, 2024 for the semifinals.

Website: https://www.equal-esports.com/events/equal-esports-cup
Discord: https://discord.gg/bcvJ2rgRv2
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/esportsplayerfoundation
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EsportsPlayerF1
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/esports_player_foundation/

The Equal eSports Cup is part of the Equal eSports Initiative, which was launched by Telekom together with SK Gaming and the esports player foundation.
As the Equal eSports Cup reflects what the Equal eSports Initiative stands for, we decided to integrate the initiative in the name of the Cup.

You can find out more about the Equal eSports Initiative here.