When Lynx forward Aerial Powers comes home from practice, she puts on her headset, logs on and starts to stream.
The WNBA star has been an avid gamer since childhood, when her family bonded over Call of Duty and GoldenEye 007. But as she’s grown older and started to play with strangers, or “randoms,” that camaraderie and support from her opponents isn’t always there.
“I've had it where I'm playing good, and I go to say something, and it's like, ‘Wait, you’re a girl?’” Powers says. “Or it's like, ‘Are you a girl or a young teenage boy?’ They’ll instantly start talking junk about being a girl. It’s just nasty.”
Despite the sexist cyberbullying she’s faced, Powers refuses to let others get in the way of one of her greatest passions, so she’s used her platform as a professional athlete to create change. She serves as the diversity and inclusion task force chair for Team Liquid, one of the largest esports organizations in the world, and became one of its co-owners just two months ago. Since joining the organization last year, she’s played a significant role in addressing the toxic environment that exists for women gamers—bringing diversity to the forefront of an industry in which it’s often overlooked.
Esports is an industry that, on the surface, appears to be male-dominated. But Powers says that image is misleading. According to a 2021 study, 45% of gamers are women; however, women in esports regularly face cyberbullying or feel the need to mute their microphones or disguise their voices to avoid disclosing their identity.
“It's just a battle that we’re going to continue to fight as women athletes, whether it's esports or traditional sports,” Powers, a 2016 first-round pick, says. “Esports is a space where it should be equal for anyone.”
Her role on Team Liquid has allowed her to fight that battle on the sport’s biggest stage. She played for the Mystics from 2018 to ’20, and the team’s owners, Ted and Zach Leonsis, were investors in the esports company, which has 60 championship-level athletes in 14 of the world’s top games. Its collective teams have won the most prize money in the history of esports, as it ranks among the best in Dota 2, League of Legends, Fortnite, Counter-Strike: Global Offense, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Street Fighter and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The Leonsis family knew about Powers’s passion for esports. Following her 2019 WNBA title run, they introduced her to co-CEO Steve Arhancet, and the partnership formed.
“We started talking about what can we do?” Arhancet says. “Why aren't there more women that are competing at the highest levels of competition? Why aren’t young girls dreaming of becoming professional gamers? Why aren't there more events that are women-only to help bring more women into this industry? Why are some of the content creators and influencers not talking more about the issues associated with underrepresentation of women?”
In January 2021, Team Liquid, which was valued at $310 million by Forbes in ’20, signed Powers as both a streamer and the chair of its diversity task force, so she could help the company answer these unresolved questions and strategize ways to make meaningful change for women gamers.
“The one thing that stood out for me was just the culture of their team,” Powers says. “Talking to Steve, his vision and his goals aligned with mine, and it just kind of took off from there.”
In the last year, Team Liquid has already made significant progress in the DEI space with Powers’s help. It signed an all-female Valorant team in Brazil with the hopes of increasing the likelihood of women playing on coed rosters at the highest level. Powers also partnered with Team Liquid sponsor Alienware—a computer hardware subsidiary of Dell known for its gaming laptops—and traveled to Austin to encourage young children to get involved in esports and STEM by revamping their gaming rooms. She will now be working as an ambassador for Coinbase, which sponsors both the WNBA and Team Liquid, to learn about cryptocurrency and help educate her community on it. And in December, she even became one of five Team Liquid players to invest their own capital in the company as a co-owner.
“This is a way of actually showing up and doing the work and giving someone like me, a young Black girl from Detroit, a chance to invest in something that I wouldn’t think I could ever imagine doing,” Powers says. “I invested as well because I believe in what we do here at Team Liquid. I believe in our organization. I believe we pick people that have the ability to do great things and that have great potential, so how can you not succeed when you have that in your back pocket?”
Given the surge esports has seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, Team Liquid will keep relying on Powers’s guidance, keeping inclusivity at the forefront as the billion-dollar industry continues to grow.
“The biggest contribution that Aerial brings is voice and perspective to influence the decisions that we make,” Arhancet says. “That has been really helpful in being much more inclusive in the things that we do and making that part of our DNA.”
Through all she’s done for Team Liquid, Powers still has her WNBA job.
“It’s definitely been a lot of work,” she says. “What I'm trying to do is build an empire, and you do that slowly, building brick by brick.”
Whether it's on the court for the Lynx or behind a screen with Team Liquid, Powers strives to continue advocating for women in all sports. She believes esports is a prime destination for change.
“The more new games come out, the more new leagues come out, the more women will start to be in the leagues, too. There are going to start being more equal opportunities for women being able to play against the guys, showing they’re right there at their skill level,” Powers says. “Think about that. That’s f---ing huge.”
