Founded back in 2014, Team YP’s main sponsor is the pornography provider YouPorn.
Through a bizarre twist in marketing, YouPorn decided that assembling some eSports teams may help their viewership. The team has been a controversial point in the community of eSports, and it appears that ESL(Electronic Sports League) has made a decision regarding the team.
From this point on, Team YP will no longer be allowed to participate in any ESL affiliated tournaments. They have been in discussions with Team YP regarding the issues ahead of the announcement, by it didn’t stop Team YP from sending out some tweets regarding the decision.
We are disappointed by @ESL‘s decision to ban our esports team. We will continue to strive towards professionalism and transparency.
— Team YP (@TeamYPOfficial) April 23, 2016
Team YP also went on to discuss how they will overcome the obstacles and continue to usher in an “age of equal opportunity for all in eSports”, despite being sponsored by what can be considered by some a sexist and corrupt industry; not to mention the team was already made aware of the rules that they were currently breaking.
ESL gave Gamesbeat a statement regarding why the team will no longer be allowed to play. “Advertising pornography is not legal in the markets we operate in, and the vast majority of partners we’re working with have strict ‘no drugs, no alcohol, no pornography’ rules that we’ve contractually taken on board. These aren’t new rules but ones that have been in our rulebooks for a long time. We have spoken to Team YP manager earlier this year, and in that conversation we’ve explained the situation and rules in detail and offered to look for potential alternatives in a bigger group. At the same time, we’re consulting with our legal teams about this. We will inform the team and the management as soon as we have any updates.”