The glitz, the fame, the cash prizes. Any gamer who ever thought they were really good at a game dreamed of the day when the spectacle and profit of sports would come to video games. Well eSports is here, and it brings all the fame and money one could desire. Provided, of course, they're good enough to battle with the best.

Then again, who are the "best" really? Are they the role models that should be representing the pinnacle of this brand new sport? What of the companies behind it? Do the people paying for Overwatch League really care about the future of the game, or are they just trying to cash in on the latest fad?

It turns out that when you look at eSports, really look at it, you'll find a lot of sketchy things happening behind the scenes. Players look for all kinds of illicit ways to make money, unsure if tomorrow will be the last day of their careers. Coaches push the players to extremes, knowing that their own jobs are on the line if they lose too much. And the teams behind it might be one check away from going bankrupt. That's just the behind-the-scenes stuff. Overwatch League is already full of heavily public scandals. Yet people still flock to it as the savior of eSports. So let's take a good hard look at Overwatch League, League of Legends, and all the other competitions out there. You might be surprised to remember just how corrupt your favorite players truly are.

25 This Scandal Began It All

via: wikiwand.com

At a time when mainstream media still referred to eSports as "e-sports" with quotation marks, competitive StarCraft was a huge thing. Mostly in Korea, which at the time accounted for over two-thirds of all competitive StarCraft events. This was in 2010, when perhaps the biggest scandal in eSports history took place.

Top StarCraft players were paid by gambling websites to throw official matches in order to fix the bets.

The matter went beyond the Korea e-sports Association, and was reported to the police. After an official investigation, ten of these players were banned from eSports, and four even went to jail. This whole debacle certainly put eSports on the map, but not in a great way. It's actually impressive that it managed to expand in the coming years.

24 No Girls Allowed

mcv.uk

The treatment of women is a huge problem in eSports, with too many examples to count. But since examples always help, let's look at one of the most notable acts of prejudice, from none other than Hearthstone. The International e-Sports Federation itself once prohibited women from taking part in a Hearthstone tournament. That's right, the title was not misleading.

An actual official eSports organization said no girls allowed.

After enough internet outrage and pressing from reporters, the organization explained that the ban was implemented because it wanted eSports to be like real sports. Like the Olympics, where events are separated by gender. Of course, people were quick to point out that the general physical differences between men and women have no bearing on a digital card game, and the ban was revoked.

23 Teams Will Do Anything To Win

via: youtube.com (OpTic MiDNiTE)

FatGamers was a Call Of Duty team that hired a player called D1ablo. D1ablo was quite skilled at Call Of Duty. So far, nothing sketchy going on there. However, D1ablo didn't meet certain official requirements for being on the team long enough to compete. FatGamers was unhappy with that rule. So what did FatGamers do? They had D1ablo log into a teammate's account instead and pretend to be that person in an official match. They got caught, the two were suspended, and FatGamers' future winnings for that period of time were reduced as a penalty. End of the story? No. When questioned about the switch, all FatGamers had to say was that at least the player they cheated with was better than the guy they swapped him out with. Ouch.

22 Players Sometimes Just Don't Get Paid

via: youtube (LeonButcher)

ESports, just like regular sports, can be quite profitable for players. The truly skilled get some very lucrative contracts in addition to sponsorship deals and highly-coveted internet fame. Except, of course, when their team just doesn't feel like paying them. This happened to players on a team called Team Immunity. The group was refused their promised payments despite winning several cash prizes for the team. This launched an investigation, resulting in Immunity being fined and banned from events. Fortunately, the players themselves were allowed to sign with other teams and continue playing unhindered. A happy ending overall. Minus the part where the players thought they had no money, anyway.

21 The Contracts Are The Absolute Worst

via: dotesports.com

ESports contracts are terribly exploitative to the players. After the Immunity debacle, where players were refused payment, Dot ESports had a lawyer examine a standard eSports contract. What the lawyer found were terms that NFL and MLB players would laugh at. Most eSports players sign away the rights to even their own faces, giving all likeness profits to the team.

There's also a strict non-compete clause, meaning players can't ever sign with other teams.

In other sports, trading team members and signing on with new teams is just part of the game. It's also a great way for players to pursue new opportunities and better paychecks. But in eSports, switching teams could be the end of one's career. Or at least that's how it used to be. Fortunately, thanks in part to big organizations like Overwatch League, players are starting to fight for more rights and freedoms.

20 Sometimes The Players Just Do What They Want

via: pcgamer.com

People take physical sports way too seriously. Even the fans in the stands, who are in no way contributing to the game, are full of opinions and emotions about what the players should be doing at any given time. And while eSports emotions can certainly run high, the games are just that in the end. Games. Video games to be precise. In 2012, two teams called Dignitas and Curse tried to remind fans that League Of Legends is just a game with disastrous results. In the final match of a tournament, the teams decided to throw strategy away and simply meet in the middle of the map for a playful melee.

Unfortunately for them, the spectators did not care for the stunt.

Nor did the event organizers, who investigated, discovered Dignitas and Curse pre-planned the stunt, and found that they split the prize money. It's maybe the one time people should've taken a video game more seriously.

19 Tournament Organizers Have No Idea What They're Doing

via: imager.com

As eSports continues to mature into an actual institution, everyone is still struggling to figure out their roles. Players have to learn to act like adults, teams have to stop exploiting players, and event organizers have to learn how to actually host events. This was a big problem for Gaming Paradise, the tournament that just didn't happen. Gaming Paradise promised over $60,000 in cash prizes in a tournament taking place at a beautiful set of European resorts.

Players didn't find out until after they traveled to these "Gaming Resorts" that there was a severe lack of tournament.

It turns out Gaming Paradise had no money for a tournament. Nor was there any money available to cover the players' hotel rooms. Many players had their passports confiscated by the police, trapped in a foreign country until they coughed up the cash for the hotels.

18 Players Are Making Money On The Side

via: dotesports.com

It turns out that pro players engage in all sorts of sordid side gigs, probably because the prospect of making money in eSports is so iffy. Sure the contracts seem lucrative, but if you could get booted from your team tomorrow over a single tweet, you'd be worried about your financial situation too. Look at Su-min “Sado” Kim, an Overwatch League player that was suspended for "boosting." Boosting is what they call it when a player levels up over peoples' Overwatch accounts for money. Not sure why there's actually a rule against that, but it does seem messed-up to pay a pro to destroy noobs in your name. Sado was penalized for it, and he admitted that he did it for the money because he was unsure of his competitive gaming future. The only thing left to ask is...do you think Sado takes requests for PS4 Overwatch accounts?

17 Players Have To Let Organizers Put Programs On Their Computers

via: wccftech.com

One of the first rules of owning a computer is to know exactly what programs you put on it. And above all else, don't let some random company install anything on your computer. Well to be an eSports player, you actually have to let random companies install software on your computer. The E-Sports Entertainment Association has been known to put anti-cheating software on competitor's machines before big matches. While already a sketchy proposition, it got even more scandalous when an employee of the ESEA decided to add some unwarranted code into the software.

The code commandeered the players' computers and made them mine Bitcoin when the players weren't looking.

They got caught after infecting 14,000 computers with the command. The ESEA tried to claim it was an April Fool's Joke, but were still fined $325,000 for the offense.

16 Twitch Chat Is A Racist Cesspool

via: youtube (Hearthstone Tournaments)

The fans of eSports are some of the most toxic people imaginable and can make the sport terrible. It's not even a matter of bitter rivalries or heated emotions about teams. The spectators, particularly those who participate in Twitch chat, are just horrible and vocal racists. Look at what happened to TerrenceM, a great Hearthstone player who made a splash at Dreamhack Austin in 2016. The tournament was streamed on Twitch, where racist viewers inundated the chat with all kinds of insults and single-lettered words. Gross. It wasn't just a handful of trolls either. The racist comments were so numerous that even the entire team of dedicated chat moderators couldn't delete them fast enough. That's a lot of racism. And it's all being pointed at people who are just trying to play a game.

15 ESports Stars Think They Can Score With Anyone

via: medium.com

A perk of being a celebrity seems to be that you can hook up with anyone you'd like. After all, who isn't attracted to fame, money, and constant displays of skill? And while that might be true, there are also many cases where the stars think they can act abusively and still get some.

This is especially true in eSports, where the idea that being good at video games earns you cash and fame is still a startling concept. 

A lot of people use that newfound power to touch whoever they want. Overwatch League has already been rocked by such scandals before it even started. The San Francisco Shock's former Team Manager Max Bateman became a former team manager because he allegedly harassed a female Twitch streamer. Sure, being a part of the first huge eSports league is amazing. But maybe keep respecting personal space while you do it.

14 Players Seem To Think Name-Calling Is Perfectly Fine

via: youtube (Team Vitality)

Foul language and League of Legends seem to go hand in hand. The game became one of the most popular games in the world, and then was immediately subject to scandals and discussions revolving around its extremely toxic player base. The in-game chat is filled with racism, anti-semitism, and players constantly telling one another to take their own lives. This toxicity reaches the professional level as well, it seems. In 2014, two pro League players called Mithy and Nukeduke were banned from the game for six months due to their toxic chat habits. They were also fined $500 each, but still reverted to their insults and suicide taunts as soon as their ban ended. Talk about a class act.

13 ESports Is Trying To Become Too Big Too Fast

via: gameaxis.com

Overwatch League thinks way too highly of itself, but we all just go along with it. After all, Overwatch has been the patron saint of hype since it's announcement. It's easy to believe that it will be the game to launch eSports to the same financial and cultural hype that regular sports have achieved for decades. But is it really smart to expect that from the very first season? The League itself seems to think so, as it asked an insane price of the teams that wanted to buy into it. It asked $20 million per team, scores ahead of League Of Legends, which only asked for $1.8 million when it was the world's most popular eSport. Sure Overwatch is popular, but does it have the strength to last? With all the scandals surrounding Overwatch League so far, I'm not sure.

12 Women In eSports Constantly Have To Prove Themselves

via: geekculture.com

Women already have enough trouble breaking into eSports what with the organizations trying to keep them out. Overwatch League didn't even have a single female player for its first few weeks. Then came Geguri.

Geguri's story is both inspiring and a sad example of how men just can't seem to acknowledge women as their equals.

Korean Overwatch player Geguri did so well as Zarya that she was harassed by 2 players called ELTA and Strobe, who bet their very careers against the fact that she was cheating. Blizzard cleared her name with data, but Geguri still felt the need to play on a public stream to prove her haters wrong. She did, and the two men were forced to keep their word and quit forever. Awesome for Geguri, but shame on those who feel the need to harass female players.

11 Celebrity eSports Players Just Want Your Money

via: polygon.com

The whole CSGO skin trade just baffles me. I know cosmetic items in games sell, and I've even thrown down cash for League Of Legends skins. But people will pay hundreds of dollars on CSGO gun skins. And two eSports players took major advantage of that. The two posted videos of themselves getting skins on a CSGO lotto site, freaking out over their supposedly amazing gains. It was revealed later, thanks to a random Youtuber's detective work, that the two actually owned the lotto site and were just drumming up business using their fame. The hope was that their fans would chase the (totally fake) prizes that they were getting on their CSGO lotto streams. It just goes to show that eSports fame and an endless desire for lots of money aren't a great combination.

10 People Like This Guy Exist

via: dotesports.com

Where racism and bigotry are found, homophobia typically isn't far behind. ESports is no exception. xQc, an Overwatch League player for the Dallas Fuel, has become infamous for his terrible behavior. One of his more recent exploits happened during a match, where he was suspended for calling a member of the Houston team by a Homophobic slur. He got a four game suspension, and a $2,000 fine for the offense. Not that it seemed to matter, as he quickly returned to making headlines for other rude and offensive remarks. Unsurprisingly, he was just booted from the Fuel about a week ago, no doubt because he became more trouble than he was worth. One would hope that would serve as an example to other members of the eSports world, but based on all the other Overwatch League punishments that get handed out on a weekly bases, I wouldn't hold my breath.

9 Even The Mods Can Be Trouble

via: compete.kotaku.com

Putting together something as big as a whole league dedicated to competitive gaming takes a lot of people. Fortunately, there are many fans who are willing to step up and help make it happen. On Twitch, there are plenty of chat moderators that come from the fan community itself. Which is great, because it provides some needed free labor. But it's also terrible, as neither Blizzard nor Twitch can really keep an eye on them. UncleSwagg was a valued member of the Overwatch community who moderated many official Twitch streams of competitive Overwatch. He was also someone who needed an eye kept on him. Little did his many fans know that he stockpiled very adult pictures of women to use against them. One of these women posted their private conversations as evidence of his crimes, and he was booted from moderation. Still, it's saddening to see what people will do with even a tiny bit of power.

8 Coaching Is A New Skill

via: overwatchwire.usatoday.com

We see in other parts of this list that teams mistreat their players all too often. Harsh contracts and "misplaced" payments are just a few of the pitfalls players must face when they try to go pro. It turns out their own coaches are another. As coaching in eSports is still a relative unknown, many coaches go about it in the wrongest of ways.

The pressure to bring home wins and please the team's owners can lead to some downright cruel coaching.

The Overwatch League's Shanghai Dragons recently fired coach Chen Congshan “U4” for some suspiciously unknown reasons. No official word was given as to why, but there were rumors of him demanding a harsh practice schedule of his players. Yet even despite that, the Dragons still lost pretty much every game. Yikes.

7 Feuds Are Very Public

via: dotesports.com

Regular sports have been around for decades. This gave the players the chance to develop in a world without social media, without the need to immediately give a statement on the issues and controversies of the day. Therefore, the ideas of sportsmanship and conduct came about long before humans had the ability to torpedo them in 140 characters or less.

Overwatch League players, unfortunately, use social media as a vital part of their careers.

Which leads to some awkward moments when they can't distinguish what is okay to say online and what isn't. A recent Twitter feud between xQc and Overwatch League caster MonteCristo showed that the people who play in eSports still have a long way to go before living up to any kind of example of sportsmanship or conduct.

6 Getting Players In From Overseas Is A Hassle

via: Technical.ly

Getting players from other countries to play on a team is a big part of regular sports. U.S. baseball teams love Dominican and Japanese players. Hockey's best come to the States from Canada and eastern Europe. So it's no surprise that eSports does the same thing. Except eSports teams seem to be terrible at it. The Philadelphia Fusion missed the pre-season games of the very first Overwatch League because they had issues acquiring visas for their international players. This a common issue in eSports, and yet teams always seem to get caught off guard by it. You'd think they'd have it figured out by now. Then again, it could be the stigma surrounding eSports. Since eSports still isn't truly recognized by the mainstream audience, it could be those who give the visas that are the trouble. Either way, as long as Korean players continue to dominate, we have to figure out how to get them here.