Riot Games and Verizon expand training program for women in esports

By Giovanni Colantonio Published June 14, 2021

Verizon and Riot Games are teaming up to offer training and mentorship for women in esports through an expansion of Verizon’s VCT Game Changers initiative. The objective is to train more female esports casters.

The announcement comes from Verizon’s E3 keynote presentation, which featured several announcements. Chief among those is Verizon’s commitment to increasing female representation in the gaming industry and esports.

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The VCT Game Changers program will give female esports casters tools to help grow their profession, as well as mentorship. The program will launch sometime this fall and offer opportunities to female players, including tournaments and broadcasts produced by Riot Games.

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As part of its inclusion initiative, Verizon put $1 million into a new Game Forward Scholarship. It will be awarded to 25 female students studying technology this fall at five historically Black colleges and universities. The list of participating schools includes North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Morgan State University, Texas Southern University, and Howard University.

Recipients will be guaranteed an internship at a top gaming or tech company, as well as access to Verizon’s 5G Gaming Center. The $1 million investment will also fund the creation of tech centers at historically Black colleges.

As for the rest of Verizon’s E3 showcase, the company announced a new partnership with EA to better optimize its games on Verizon devices. The mobile company has also partnered with Team Liquid to create a new VR experience that lets people attend live events virtually. Finally, Verizon has teamed up with Dignitas to beta launch an NFT experience. The first 100 fans to interact with Dignitas on its social channels will receive an NFT of Dignitas’ Women’s FPS team that can be viewed in AR.

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Giovanni Colantonio

Senior Gaming Editor

As Digital Trends' Senior Gaming Editor, Giovanni Colantonio oversees all things video games at Digital Trends. As a veteran…

Gaming

You can compete in the Olympics eSports Series by playing a $1 baseball game

A pitcher holds a ball in WBSC Baseball Power Pros.

A $1 baseball game shadow dropped by Konami during a Nintendo Direct, WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros was a very odd release in February. That said, the purpose of its launch and low price point is becoming clearer as the International Olympic Committee revealed that it's one of the featured games in its Olympic Esports Series 2023 lineup.
WBSC eBASEBALL: POWER PROS - Launch Trailer - Nintendo Switch
Starting this month, players can start competing in featured games like Power Pros to qualify for the Olympic Esports Finals 2023, which will take place at Singapore's Suntec Centre between June 22 and June 25. A more arcade-like and low-poly take on the sport than something like MLB The Show 23, Power Pros was a fairly small-scale and simple game that mainly stood out because of its low price point. Clearly, its international baseball focus and approachability enticed the IOC, who've decided to elevate its esports status.
Esports has been popular for quite a while, although the most popular esports titles are games that can't really be emulated in real life, like Starcraft 2, League of Legends, Call of Duty, and Fortnite. The IOC is taking a decisively different approach with its esports competition, instead choosing to include games that emulate real-world sports, with the IOC calling it a "virtual and simulated sports competition." That ultimately results in an unexpected esports game lineup that also consists of Tic Tac Bow (archery), Virtual Regatta, Virtual Taekwondo, Zwift (cycling), Gran Turismo (motorsport), Just Dance, Tennis Clash, and Chess played on Chess.com.

This unorthodox approach to esports is why a Konami game like Power Pros, which came out less than a month ago, isn't the most in-depth baseball simulation out there, and only costs $1, made the cut. Still, there is something exciting about the barrier of entry for an official Olympic competition being this low.
WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros is available now for PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

Gaming

Summer Game Fest returns just before E3 2023 next June

The official artwork confirming Summer Game Fest's return on June 8, 2023.

Geoff Keighley has confirmed when Summer Game Fest will return in June 2023. It will begin with a live kickoff show on June 8, 2023, placing Keighley's game announcement alternative less than a week before E3's grand (intended) 2023 return.
Unlike past years, Summer Game Fest Live Kickoff 2023 will feature a live audience, like Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards. It will take place in the YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park, with tickets going on sale in early 2023. It will still be livestreamed across platforms like YouTube and Twitch, though. It's currently unknown who's participating, how long Summer Game Fest will run afterward, or if it will feature a Summer Game Fest Play Days-like element for fans. Still, Keighley says all of that info will be revealed ahead of the event next year, teasing what people can expect.
"In keeping with tradition, we'll have tons of exciting announcements from the developers that are pushing the games industry forward, and will once again highlight other publisher digital events, demos, and more surprises to be announced in the coming months," Keighley says in a press release.
That June 8 start date, and the other Summer Game Fest events likely to follow, put Keighley's show just ahead of E3 2023. The ESA and ReedPop plan to bring E3 back between June 13 and June 16, 2023. With five days of lead time on E3, Summer Game Fest can coexist with the long-running gaming conference and encompass the plethora of publisher showcases that tend to precede E3.
Geoff Keighley made it clear that he wants Summer Game Fest and E3 to coexist for a while. "We've had extensive conversations with ReedPop about E3," he said in an interview with Epic Games Store. "I think it'll kind of fit together and flow kind of from what we're doing into what they're doing and stuff. E3, to me, is this kind of master brand that represents gaming news in June."
With the start date of Summer Game Fest confirmed, the coexistence of these two summer gaming events is a reality. Summer Game Fest returns on June 8, 2023.

Gaming

Esports organization TSM ends deal with FTX, but is stuck with the brand on Twitter

Multiple members of the TSM esports team.

Esports organization TSM is ending its partnership with FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange currently struggling with a high-profile collapse. Though in a strange twist of fate, TSM is unable to remove FTX from its Twitter handle due to Twitter's new verification rules.

TSM partnered with FTX in June 2021 via a naming rights deal set to last 10 years. At the time, the partnership was valued at a whopping $210 million. With the deal, TSM would change its name to TSM FTX and use the company's logo on gear like jerseys, as well as display it in players' social media profiles. With FTX's recent collapse, which saw the cryptocurrency exchange filing for bankruptcy, TSM found itself in an awkward position less than two years into the deal.