The League of Legends community has condemned “sick and disgusting” toxicity directed at professional players after G2 Esports bot laner Hans Sama received a “absurd number of death threats” following his team’s best-of-five series loss to T1 at the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational last week.
Romain Bigeard, G2’s manager, revealed in an interview with MGG TV on May 14 that Hans sama received multiple death threats due to his performance during this series.
It is one thing to criticize players for poor performance or item choices, and there may have been a couple of those times during the BO5 vs T1. However, death threats are never the right answer, and most League fans agree; many are already claiming “there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed.” Many people believe that those sending death threats on Hans sama online have gone too far.
In particular, players on Reddit called the behavior of any individuals targeting Hans sama for his May 10 outing “disgusting” and “shitty,” with many calling for immediate action.
Professional players, whether in sports or esports, should not be subjected to this behavior from anyone, let alone their communities and fanbases. While the League community can often be nasty, death threats are extremely rare.
Sadly, threats against League professionals aren’t quite as uncommon as you’d think. Just recently, a chef in Chengdu, China suggested he could poison the T1 League team while they were eating at his restaurant and broadcaster-turned-developer Phreak had to remove himself from social media due to death threats last year.
This issue raises the essential question of how participants and professionals in this business can defend themselves against dangers and what support structures are in place to alleviate the emotional toll that these events impose. In particular, League fans today agreed there needs to be “serious consequences” for people who issue any kind of threats.
Fortunately, the bot laner went to G2 Esports staff for assistance and has since made a great recovery, assisting G2 in a clean 3-0 sweep of TOP Esports on May 14.
Hopefully, League fans and the T1 and TL communities will behave better today when the two compete in an all-or-nothing series that begins at 3 a.m. CT.