All Quiet On The Rainbow Front

When it comes to the battle for LGBT recognition in esports, the total takeover by the Saudi Arabian state and their esports allies has ensured we'll all be home by Christmas

So, June is soon to be in our rearview and the corporations can all go back to distributing their insincerity across the other social causes they don’t actually care about. In the world of esports, it has to be noted this was quite possibly the quietest Pride Month we’ve had since organisations realised they could raise money in American markets by synthesizing concern for the twin masters of diversity and inclusion. There were fewer rainbows floating across social media and fewer saccharine soliloquies about how the orgs see you and stand beside you. What gives?

Well, an interesting but not unexpected thing has happened since dozens of the world’s top esports organisations have partnered with the Saudi Arabian state. Many of them have elected to shelve the values they very publicly traded on just a few years ago to avoid offending their new paymasters and potential fans. Turns out values and principles have borders and there is little interest in fighting the good fight in territories where to do so will cost you money instead of making it.

You will recall that one of the key arguments put forward by those who have openly agreed to partner with Saudi Arabian state entities is that in doing so they are presenting Western cultural values around equality to them and softening their resolve about implementing them into their society. I’m old enough to remember when this argument was made about Russia as news footage of citizens queuing a quarter mile to enjoy a McDonalds for the first time did the rounds. This argument has been made about the Chinese state as a rationale for doing business there and instead we delete gay love scenes from movies, airbrush black people out of advertising and even invent entire scenes to pander to their sensibilities. If there’s one thing you can safely ridicule the attempted export of Western values for, it’s how quickly our self-appointed ambassadors sell them out as soon as the check clears.

And so it has been with the esports relationship with Riyadh. When the organisations are challenged, they explain that long term it will be a good thing not just for them but for the Saudi Arabian people. They say that progress takes time even as they spit divisive venom into the eyes of their domestic fans and colleagues for their accused ethical sloth. Yet the reality is this the cultural backwash has only flowed in one direction and this is demonstrated by the actions across June.

Many organisations were slowing down on Pride Month anyway. There are a variety of reasons for this which include partnership with Chinese businesses, expansion into MENA territories or as one owner told me on background “it was always something we did for the fucking Americans because Europeans are generally less hysterical about that shit.” It’s also impossible to ignore the cultural backslide Americans generally feel on these issues… As always when people are paying attention you must win hearts and minds rather than claim to know about the secret nazi thoughts that live in the hearts of minds of anyone who expresses mild disagreement. Yet the LGBT movement in America let wokescolds and posers poison their message so potently that even moderates can’t metabolise it anymore and are loathe to try.

But it was at one point a dogma readily adopted to unlock marketing budget and gather fans from different backgrounds. Between 2016 and 2019 it was a slam dunk way to achieve both that and publicity as the world became obsessed with “resisting” things, some of them real, some of them whole cloth fabrications. “We’ll never be like that in esports” they said but of course the only foundational principle in esports is the people who run it will do and say anything to never have to go back to whatever world they came from and end their play pretend celebrity lifestyle. This June we’ve seen that reality play out as barely any of the organisations that were heading to Riyadh and Qiddiya mentioned Pride.

Now understand I don’t think you have to. I’ve explained this many times but what I label Performative Pride, that is fake and loud support for LGBT causes does more harm than good. Most importantly it warps the expectations of LGBT people fooling them into thinking they have powerful allies they can rely upon. My brothers and sisters know you do not. We are very much on our own and even the most immediate and obvious of support networks is a fractious alliance held together by necessity and quick to come apart afterwards. These companies are welcoming only in so far as you can serve as a shield from criticism or when they can take your identity and turn into a line of merchandise. They won’t even boycott an event in a country that has the legal authority to murder you. Take note and spend accordingly.

The second danger of Performative Pride is that it provides easy fodder for the bigots when the cracks in the façade start to show. “Look, they don’t even care about this deviant shit” they say and then they are emboldened to speak about how the Rainbow Mafia is a minority that can be silenced. Wavering support suggests there may very well be something wrong with the support in the first instance, but it isn’t the businesses that suffer in the long term. Sure, they get humiliated on social media for a few days, a briefly tough time for an anonymous admin. Once that dies down that energy is simply channelled back into your common-or-garden homophobia. In short you beat someone over the head with it then leave us to face the retaliatory blows.

A subtle rainbow in a jersey might not say as much as you think

Which isn’t to say Riyadh won’t throw a few token gestures at their new business partners. The world of sports shows us that ultimately when it comes to making money the Saudi royal family themselves can be somewhat flexible. For instance, Team Liquid are peacocking about how they are once again going to be allowed to wear a jersey with a rainbow on it while competing in Riyadh. While I see little victory in being given an exception that the people of Saudi would not, I also have no doubt they will try and serve this up as a “told you so” à la the “they drive now” justification. It must also be noted that while both times have involved rainbow colours, nothing specifically about the design screams “pride” and it’s hard to believe that discussions and concessions didn’t occur along these lines.

Where Saudi Arabia and their sportswashing enterprises are involved, I do not believe in coincidence. See for example their decision to release a documentary series in June and how their partnership requires the esports organisations to post about it as much as possible. The series, which we will eventually get round to reviewing, sees an episode of propaganda released every week in June, creating so much noise as to drown out any other efforts anyone else would be talking about. The series so far serves as the standard normie, esports documentary slop with the added exception that it actively rewrites history to make both the EWC and Saudi organisation Falcons seem like the pinnacle of esports.

Still, that presupposes these organisations would be publicly expressing support for Pride Month anyway. Let’s look at some examples starting with Cloud9. As North America’s largest esports organisation they used to never miss an opportunity to speak up about Pride and social causes. See for yourself. This June they decided not to but their main account did manage to tweet a total of twenty (20) times about the Esports World Cup. For what it’s worth they tweeted more about Father’s Day than they did Pride Month in 2025.

Or what about Fnatic in Europe? Another organisation that has talked a good game, even having a diversity and inclusion page on their official website. There they state that “Fnatic is a long-standing supporter of the LGBT+ gaming community: for example, our 2019 Pride collection saw 100% of proceeds from a one-off apparel drop channelled to London Gaymers and Stonewall. As an issue, continued support of LGBT+ participation in esports is emblematic of Fnatic’s vision of gaming as a space for all of humanity to connect.” Obviously with such strong committed beliefs you can imagine they’ve been vocal for this year’s Pride. Except there’s nothing there, even as they managed to tweet about the Esports World Cup fifteen (15) times in June.

Similarly, you can laugh at Vitality whose last tweet about Pride or LGBT causes was in 2022 where they proclaimed “this is the right time to acknowledge that people are still discriminated for their gender identity & sexual orientation.” It sure was because the following year they were in attendance at Riyadh’s Gamers8 festival and have gone on to become one of the Esports World Cup’s most faithful servants. Accordingly Pride Month or anything to do with LGBT causes have not been on the agenda since.

Picture courtesy Atlanta FaZe Twitter

While there might be a swing in the social pendulum and a number of factors that makes Pride posting no longer the money raising meta, there are a few things to remember before you shrug it off. The first is it is no coincidence that it has died down at the exact moment the largest sources of money are now coming from sources where it isn’t culturally accepted to speak on such things. American marketing budgets for esports have been rightfully slashed, hilariously as a direct result of the lies and incompetence of the people now latched on to the Saudi money teat. The second thing to never forget is that no-one forced these people to go so hard on these causes to begin with.

Let’s end with a story. You may recall that FaZe Clan, also now part of the Esports World Cup stipend program, wished a happy Pride Month and “love to our LGBTQ+ friends, family, and community” on June 1^st 2022. When one of their members, Talal “virus” Almalki, an adherent Muslim, stated publicly that he did not support the LGBT community due to his religious beliefs he was attacked by many in the esports community for such an open expression of bigotry. By January 2023 he had left the organisation citing the treatment he received, which according to him included him being frozen out of brand deals due to his comments. He also stated that he had suggested collaborations in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, all of which were declined as being non-compatible with the organisation’s values. By August of that year FaZe would attend the Gamers8 event in Riyadh and go on to promote that festival’s conversion into the Esports World Cup. They’ve since gone back and deleted the 2022 tweet.

You see, when it comes down to it, quite literally the organisations that take the scraps from the Saudi table have no pride at all.