The League of Legends community has today condemned “sick and disgusting” toxicity directed at pro players after G2 Esports bot laner Hans Sama was left dealing with an “absurd number of death threats” in the wake of his team’s best-of-five series loss against 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.
Now, it’s one thing to criticize players for their performance or poor item choices, and sure, there may have been a few of those moments during this BO5 against 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.” For many, the people issuing these death threats to Hans Sama online well and truly crossed that line.
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.
Whether in the sports or esports industry, professional players shouldn’t have to deal with this behavior from anyone, let alone their communities and fanbases. While the League community can sometimes be toxic, death threats are an extreme low.
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 situation does raise the important topic of how players and pros in this industry can protect themselves from threats and what support systems are in place to ease the mental toll that comes from these situations. In particular, League fans today agreed there needs to be “serious consequences” for people who issue any kind of threats.
Thankfully, the bot laner turned to G2 Esports staff for help and has since made an impressive comeback, helping G2 win a clean 3-0 sweep against TOP Esports on May 14.
Hopefully, League fans and the T1 and TL communities will show better behavior today as the two meet in an all-or-nothing series that starts at 3am CT.
