NAVI quit women's CS, cite "unsustainable" business model

7-1-2025 15:49

The Ukrainian organization leaves the space after three years.

The future of NAVI Javelins' players is now up in the air

Natus Vincere have announced that they have parted ways with their women's CS team, NAVI Javelins, and left the space. In a statement posted on the organization's website, NAVI explained that the business model for women's CS "seems unsustainable and does not allow for long-term planning."

The news comes just three weeks after the players revealed on social media that NAVI had allowed them to explore their options.

NAVI entered the women's scene in April 2022 ahead of ESL Impact Season 1 with the signing of the Polish squad Totalne Gituwy. The team won the IESF Women's World Championship later that year and went on to finish in second place at three consecutive ESL Impact events.

HLTV Awards: Rookie, Team, and Women's awards finalists revealed

In August, NAVI Javelins moved away from an all-Polish lineup and brought in Mayline-Joy "⁠ASTRA⁠" Champliaud and Marta "⁠D7⁠" Asensio, formerly of NIP Impact and GUILD fe. The team finished top-four at the ESL Impact League Season 6 Finals, in November.

The players have not announced their plans, but HLTV knows it is likely they will go their separate ways.

NAVI add to the list of organizations that have parted ways with women's teams in recent weeks. ENCE, TSM, Astralis and Virtus.pro are some of the other organizations that have decided to put their women's section on hold since the end of ESL Impact Season 6.

NAVI Javelins had:

Wiktoria "⁠vicu⁠" Janicka
Hania "⁠Hanka⁠" Pudlis
Angelika "⁠Angelka⁠" Kozłowska
Mayline-Joy "⁠ASTRA⁠" Champliaud
Marta "⁠D7⁠" Asensio

Adrian "⁠AlcesT⁠" Chyziak (coach)

unlucky

2025-01-07 15:49

47 replies

Its actually not unlucky. Why investing in a female team, when the scene is unsustainable? You would just spend money for nothing... not really worth it

2025-01-07 16:06

166

28 replies

Any esports CS org since 2000 has been unsustainable until sticker money came along. Navi earns millions per year, investing a few couple thousand dollars per month on these girls would be a blimp for them. Sad to see navi doing this.

2025-01-07 16:16

120

27 replies

No, clearly not, cs female is just designed to suit pro players who are unable to play against t5 male teams. There is no reason to finance a closed-circuit female only while t5 male players do not receive money while being better than them.

2025-01-07 16:25

139

16 replies

as in any other sport but that does not mean we should cut women tennis cause the best woman cannot beat a man outside of top 100

2025-01-07 17:59

11 replies

Its quite easy from buissnes perspective. If there are people watching it - you've got money involved. With money involved, you'll have prizes that will brind more women to the sport. There is very few sports that women are actually payed well enough to treat it as full time job.

2025-01-07 18:34

how about chess then, all the tournaments are still open to women but they also have a separated division that sunstain itself pretty well, if it didn't women category wouldn't exist

2025-01-07 18:52

3 replies

because chess is well known in society not even to mention the history about it, female cs2 not so much...

2025-01-07 19:26

CS tournaments are also open to women...

2025-01-08 18:52

1 reply

That's the point

2025-01-09 01:48

there is a big difference between phisical sports and "psychological" sports. there are scientific differences in muscle structures while games like chess dont put a block to women, mostly simply cant compete with top level chess players (a few can toh). why should it be different in esports where you dont have a physical difference?

2025-01-07 22:21

#152

2025-01-08 01:17

Women don't have a disadvantage in CS though. You can cope however you want but it's entirely a result of the anti male society we live in. Women have to compete against men in piano competitions where they actually have a natural disadvantage.

2025-01-08 12:12

They do have a disadvantage. A biological disadvantage. Reaction time hand eye coordination etc. Having said that if their league doesn't make money it should be shut down. The same goes for all female sports. Shut it down if nobody gives a fuck about it. It's time to embrace reality again. We are not the same. We do not have the same interests. And that is a good thing.

2025-01-08 21:13

...double post...

2025-01-08 12:15

do people watch women's tennis? yes. do people watch women's cs? I leave it to you to answer the question

2025-01-09 13:04

that is plain BS - please watch e.g. coffeezilla or Richard Lewis episodes on the esports scene. the male scene is also unsustainable due to insane player salaries and esports org have to take casino money (please remember the G2 video with monesy where they advertised gambling as their new sponsor) just to pay their divisons, or do you think that the prize money or sticker money or merchandise pays everything?

2025-01-08 11:53

Ok, so esport is not sustainable (even if CS is actually more sustainable than LoL). And then what? Because it is not sustainable we have to throw money out for sh*t show? Do people complain that t5 mix are not paid and do not have orgs to attend t1 events? No. So why should we make a difference because they are female? There is not physical difference in esport to justify that.

2025-01-08 11:56

2 replies

that is not what i said nor my intention of my comment. i just wanted to point out that the business model of cs (and probably in other esports titles as well but there i lack information and knowledge with the exception of DOTA) is in general unhealthy and even small hickups cause a lot of disruption, also in T1 teams. there were plenty of orgs which ceased their operations and a couple of them were also T1 related. and yes, i do understand that removing the female roster is part of the business process so they can have the money to focus on their T1 rosters. for female i can only speak that their road is much more rocky to reach the competition as most of their leagues and competitions are only placed in female tournaments.

2025-01-08 12:59

Heroic did money Mouz did too Vitality CS squad was profitable this and last year (contrary to their LoL squad) Also, modern football is not suitable too, many football clubs (except from the top top) are losing money and are in bankruptcy.

2025-01-08 15:09

a couple thousands xdddddd. if they are paying them 50 bucks a months, flight tickets are free and they bootcamp from internet cafe, maybe then it’ll be “a couple thousands”

2025-01-07 16:41

xD it's clear to me that you don't know how any business works

2025-01-07 17:12

When you say couple of thousands, I don't think you realise what the actual spending is. Salary will be at least 1k a month per player This is AT LEAST - 6000-7000E a month (with coach) + bootcamp + tickets + accommodation + expenses They are investing at least 100k a year for the female team. The team eared in 2024 around 25.000$ from all the evens . As a business, if you think of a long-term investment, you will end up losing every year at least 50-60k on the female team. Apart from ESL and Tradeit, no one is investing in female scene... this is sad but true...

2025-01-07 17:14

Prize money is not everything. Sponsors matter too. And considering the second coming of Trump, less and less companies would sponsor something for sheer wokeness of it.

2025-01-07 17:32

Aurora CEO said that he spends 1.5 mil on a main roster + academy, with bootcamps. so if we cut the academy out of equation, account for female salaries, i'd say it's 500k a year

2025-01-07 19:19

Even with sticker money NAVI will be loosing money. it not being sustainable means they are loosing big ammounts of money on the fe team.

2025-01-07 17:51

I love how people like you come in here talking out their arse like YOU wouldn’t do the same if you were in Navi’s shoes. Nobody in this world wants their business to lose money. That’s not what they’re here for. They’re here to make money and lots of it so of course they’re going to move away until they see money signs over their heads again. You would do the same thing, trust me. Even if you earned Elon Musk money.

2025-01-07 21:31

Brainrot comment

2025-01-07 23:27

Bait or braindead?

2025-01-07 23:28

Someone clearly has no idea

2025-01-08 20:04

Actually ex-NAVI Javelins should get Invite to BLAST Bounty Lmao Because they higher than M80

2025-01-07 16:11

"ALL THESE YEARS" lol its only been 19 months, which is not even 2 years

2025-01-07 16:21

ohnepixel can sign them and they no longer have a clash for tournaments with NaVi men

2025-01-07 16:42

like that would've been a problem anyway

2025-01-07 17:06

It is a problem, wdym? They literally would have been invited to Blast Bounty. Same with Furia FE

2025-01-07 19:27

Women major rmr incoming

2025-01-07 18:41

don't think that was what he meant. It's just unfortunate that there's not enough business for the female side in CS. Volvo should get some inspiration from riot to include them as well

2025-01-07 18:48

Nothing stops them from grinding as every t2/t3 team does, all tournaments open for both genders

2025-01-07 19:09

They do and they try, problem is a lot of teams in scrims don't want to "waste time" practicing against them because they are so bad. The time I was trying to make a team just for shits and giggles when I was level 6 and we got opportunity to pracc against the female navi team and all try outs were very reluctant in doing so because we would "kick their ass". It's more the issue that they aren't really given the chance either to get decent scrims. Yes they probably could work harder, but the fact that even lower tier teams think that there's no point praccing them is IMO a bit ridiculous.

2025-01-08 12:23

And how many tier1-2 female players in Valorant? Riot tried their best to make Valorant as appealing to woman as possible, and they still ended up with the same amount tier1-2 female players as in CS2 (literally 0) So why should Valve, teams and orgs waste their money on something, that wouldn't work anyway?

2025-01-08 07:26

8 replies

you are aware that quite a lot of the game changers are radiants AKA top 500 within their own region?

2025-01-08 12:20

5 replies

And your point is?

2025-01-08 18:53

4 replies

The point is that the game changers are actually just as skilled as the average pro in Val at least mainly because of equal opportunities and that they have the opportunity to pug freely. And you are aware that hitting radiant in general is quite a big indication that you are a decent player?

2025-01-09 12:19

And how many of them are "tier1-2 female players"? 0?

2025-01-09 12:37

Ease up with the snus, you'd get more blood flowing to your brain

2025-01-09 12:53

Expected. You did prove nothing and went for insults. Just admit you are wrong. There is not a single player in tier1-2-3 teams in Valorant who is a biological female. There is 1 transgender tho, but that kinda proves my point more than yours.

2025-01-09 15:47

in 2025 in apeks woman will debiut. 2 times woman world champion

2025-01-08 22:26

You mean florescent? She is a transgender. Nice try tho, you almost made an argument

2025-01-09 11:44

navi broke????

2025-01-07 15:50

I don't think so. But why burn money for no reason? I suppose to support female CS, but is that Navis responsibility? idk

2025-01-07 15:53

True, but i think its a bit like supporting my local soccer club. Im burning like 500 euros per year. Is it my responsability? Nah. am i going bankrupt because of it? Nah.

2025-01-07 16:18

navi arent very good in other esports apart from cs, so itd make sense if theyre not as rich as ppl think they are

2025-01-07 16:44

Your local soccer club at least is entertaining enough + some players could get hired for top teams

2025-01-08 07:37

noooo Viku

2025-01-07 15:51

Hanka noo

2025-01-07 16:01

Big Mama Hanka

2025-01-07 16:02

I'm gonna miss girls from Javelins. Really a bad move

2025-01-07 16:03

Doubt a T3-4 team would take a chance on her as their main AWPer. Unfortunate but it’s the only way for her (or any female pro) to have any chance of getting some relevance

2025-01-08 12:30

G2 VICU letsgooo

2025-01-07 15:52

How many teams are there even left in that scene?

Having and tier 3-4 team getting paid like a high tier2 is unsustainable? No shit sherlock

2025-01-07 15:59

One of the most successful teams in recent female scene and can't be sustained. There is so much that TO's can give for "women" only events. Considering the history of female teams losing to random faceit 5 stacks in qualifiers for events I can presume they don't practise as often as pro's, they have to start doing so if they want anything.

2025-01-07 16:00

wow. if it was an org like Fluxo or Permitta fe saying this, it wouldnta been sad, but rich NAVI saying this is not a good sign.....

Spirit fe also cut their team a month ago.

2025-01-07 16:04

Based NAVI

D7 back to BIG (this time to the main team)

i would love to be in a biz meet (thats what we in the business call a business meeting) hearing what the UPS of this up and coming franchise was

the right choice tbh, this aint charity. women cs makes too little money overall to ever be profitable.

2025-01-07 16:08

Common Navi L

2025-01-07 16:09

Is there any sports at all where Women's side is profitable? UFC - nobody cares, basketball - 1.5 people care, hockey - nobody cares, soccer - lol

Tennis, golf, ski, athletics etc

2025-01-07 16:19

Tennis

curling

2025-01-07 16:59

Tennis i guess, yet still, prime Serena Williams couldn't beat top300 male tennis player.

2025-01-07 17:19

Ronda Rousey made a lot of money for the UFC back then

2025-01-07 19:17

yeah but UFC not really a team sport, no matter the gender it will be profitable if you have someone that is 1. talented and 2. has personality enough to sell ppv

2025-01-07 20:17

Individual sports (summer and winter olympics etc.) are highly competitive and some sports are even more interesting than men's. They are not signed under an org but make money from winnings and sponsorships

2025-01-08 20:48

football (soccer) is pretty good on the high level. In England top female teams are selling out Male stadiums with 80k capacity. Woman world cup is also pretty popular. Female Volleyball and handball also

2025-01-08 22:31

Sadge for those pro females, hope they find other teams instead and keep competing.

2025-01-07 16:13

finally

2025-01-07 16:20

The issue is that they can't sport both the male and female teams at events, so why pay for two rosters when only one can compete? Based on VRS, both Navi teams would be invited to large events like BLAST bounty

2025-01-07 16:26

All of esports is a unsustainable business model at least navi admits it

2025-01-07 16:28

Maybe Valve should intervene and make a way so orgs can earn money from female scene? currently only males earn money from stickers

2025-01-07 16:34

There is nothing stopping women from earning sticker money.

2025-01-07 17:45

skill?

2025-01-08 07:48

Well you might be right but what I meant was that nothing is stopping them to qualify to major to get them.

2025-01-09 11:50

- wonderful + vicu

2025-01-07 16:40

With this being the prospect, i wonder why there's not women flooding into the scene. Might it have something to do with women being a small minority of the playerbase, which is expected to attain comparable results to the large majority..? Oh sorry, that's right, i forgot, it's because they're bad at the game, right guys?? Let's have "them" compete in riyadh next!

They aren't flooding in because they're barely playing CS. They have the options to play events for up and coming teams like CCT, Frost and Fire, YaLLa Compass like any other tier 2/3 team. Instead, they choose to sit in their little corner and exclusively play in women's leagues, which are massively unprofitable and have next to no viewers.

2025-01-07 21:25

Why are u spreading misinformation? They try to play normal tournaments but they fail to qualify because theyre not good yet.

2025-01-08 23:49

Oh no, the #27 best team in the world (according to Valve) is disbanding What a disaster !

2025-01-07 16:49

that sucks

Na’vi smartest org in the business

2025-01-07 16:50

2025-01-07 16:51

Damn, Navi Javelins were top tier for Women CS, well thats a bummer

sad

There's a business model to not only allow women to compete in this sport but bring viewership but at the moment, there's too many tourney's on the schedule the viewership is low. The prize pools are not sustainable in this market and we, as a community need to view more and show more support. Impact league nice but what we're doing now isn't working. We need to give women a space to flourish and survive. I hope something changes.

2025-01-07 17:15

>There's a business model to not only allow women to compete in this sport but bring viewership no there is not. stop the cope.

2025-01-07 17:56

It's not a cope. I understand that there's a disconnect...but that's truly the problem. This isn't a physical sport where there's a clear difference in body build between men and women. This is a mechanically heavy game that focuses on training and precision. Either increase the prize money that women can win on the Impact tour and advertise it more to get people to watch and attend OR do away with the tour and allow the women to compete in the men's tournaments and win that is there. There is clearly more involved in the "business" model but when ESL Impact only puts up $123k and winner of the league gets $50k ... that's funny money to an org trying to pay salaries to players who are doing this for a living. Would you work hard if you were getting paid minimum wage or $50 a hour? Clearly the latter. Challenger league has the same prize pool (total $100k, but still $50k to first) but a lot of Challenger teams compete in Tier 1 events during the year. Or think of this ... Impact League teams who win or even for 2nd place ... get an invite to something like Pro League. There can be a stepping stone for women and if we continue to keep it separated and segregated ... we'll never know truly how good women are or can be and we'll never allow them to earn the money they deserve for the skill, talent and time they put in.

2025-01-10 16:53

>This isn't a physical sport where there's a clear difference in body build between men and women. This is a mechanically heavy game that focuses on training and precision. Yes, it is a physical sport. Moving a mouse like a surgeon would move a scalpel for 2+ hours under immense psychological pressure is very much a physical sport and men are better at anything physical AND better under pressure (psychologically). Men also have innately better reaction time, something women can never overcome with training. Men also have better spatial reasoning skills. The average woman is incredibly bad at CS compared to the average man. CS is not an activity that fits women's nature. men invented the game and continued to shape it to make it enjoyable for themselves. I'm really baffled when I encounter opinions that gloss over all of these obvious facts as if they were secret, lost knowledge. All of this stuff is incredibly obvious if one thinks about the issue rationally and HONESTLY for just a few minutes. Take off the blinders. Your inability to see the obvious is self-imposed. >increase the prize money >when ESL Impact only puts up $123k and winner of the league gets $50k women's CS is already not bringing enough money IN. you can't solve that by spending more. there is simply no audience for it. >OR do away with the tour and allow the women to compete in the men's tournaments and win that is there. I am fine with this but it's pointless as they will never win against men. look at the current points debacle where they made ONE point-based ranking, but women get separate events where they can collect points by only playing against each other. what a shit show. and now women's teams have spots in a tournament they don't deserve and are going to bomb out without a map win. >Would you work hard if you were getting paid minimum wage or $50 a hour? for someone to want to pay me 50 bucks an hour I need to be serving some kind of economic demand. what I'm doing must make that other party at least 50 bucks per hour. THERE IS NO AUDIENCE. no audience, no money. >we'll never allow them to earn the money they deserve for the skill, talent and time they put in you think niko or zywoo get paid 100k a month because the orgs are like, "he deserves it for how hard he works"??? holy shit, GROW UP.

2025-01-10 17:40

now they can play blast and katowice xddd

2025-01-07 17:33

D7 to FaZe

2025-01-07 18:00

Yes, she will do excellent in the female FaZe squad that is rumored to open up next season.

2025-01-07 18:18

Sad

2025-01-07 18:19

Just make esplrts gender neutral. If a female good enough or t1 then let her join a men's roster. Not enough female players for their own league

2025-01-07 18:23

It is, we have gender neutral and FE only. Women can play in any tournament and join mixed rosters

2025-01-07 19:21

They are just not good enougj

2025-01-07 23:33

So many people celebrating in comments xd And then they wonder why so little female play CS

2025-01-07 18:43

because it's a huge W, female scene dying is the only possible way we get women in top teams in the future - now there is no incentive in women to move to mixed teams because it's easier money in women only tournaments

2025-01-07 19:06

Best 5 female team Will lose vs any academy kids pro team 10outof10

2025-01-07 23:32

Read my comment again and again until you understand.

2025-01-07 23:38

Judit Polgar refused to play in female tournaments. Why? Did she also contribute in the decrease of female chess?

2025-01-08 12:34

Will javelins core now get invites to some T2 tourneys? They are pretty high in ranking

2025-01-07 19:20

2025-01-07 20:07

ana + vicu to a male team pls

2025-01-07 20:25

less $$$$ so they won't do it unless forced

2025-01-07 23:39

Maybe a male 1.8k elo faceit stack, yes

2025-01-08 00:15

good job navi, letting go of one of the best 3 female teams in the world but keeping the dota2 roster that struggle to find even tier 2 players.

2025-01-07 20:31

Yes, it's good to make negative returns on the female roster and still keep it going.

2025-01-08 00:16

Sad :(

2025-01-07 20:46

These female players should split up in groups of 2 and 3 and go recruit top up and coming male talent.

2025-01-07 21:24

Male talent? They are ESEA Main players... Talents don't play ESEA Main brother.

2025-01-07 22:43

Rip :/

Rip girls, very good players btw

2025-01-07 23:19

2025-01-08 00:55

zero viewership unfortunately

2025-01-08 02:41

you know that cs2 female is dead when even betting on them is just pure garbage, round live locked after 2 rounds, handicap locked , like tournaments like ESL impact is just so bad, huge differences between 1 team and the other. meanwhile you can bet 600000 USD on scam tournaments like eternity league / ultras cs pro league / destiny league / berserk league on pretty much every round

2025-01-08 02:42

passion ua -jambo +aNa = major winners

2025-01-08 08:58

Major pharmacy client spotted...

2025-01-09 10:37

Polish girls are free agents now :)

2025-01-08 12:11

Somewhat expected but still really sad that this is the reality

2025-01-08 13:14

Female CS needs a few Caitlin Clarks if they are to get any interest from the community.

2025-01-08 15:19

Female CS should be more about content creation, insightful broadcasts with a lot of comms. Female CS still has a potential, but now the winter is coming 🥶

2025-01-08 20:11