The North American Female League was founded in the fall of 2008 by two avid female gamers and is the first of its kind to gain such popularity in the United States' CS 1.6 community. Their main purpose: "to give North American female gamers a chance to play with each other and encourage them to be more competitive." Pandemic's Justin Loeb sits down with Pandemic.Ladies Amy "ako" Kao and NAFL founder Anita Lok for a look inside this groundbreaking project.

With any new league will come much criticism, especially in a community like that of esports, and many thought the creation of NAFL was a step in the wrong direction. Breaking the traditional female idea of equality in gaming, Anita Lok, Vice President of NAFL, is out to prove the cynics wrong. "Originally the idea of NAFL was to prepare the girls for upcoming ESWC tournaments," said Lok referencing the Esports World Cup, the one major annual event which featured a female-only CS 1.6 competition. "Since the league's demise, we aim to keep the girls occupied with their own league. We don’t discourage them from participating in other leagues such as CEVO or ESEA. This is something to give to the girls so that they have something to look forward to that has similar competitive feel like the ESWC women's CS division."

There has been an overwhelming amount of support for the North American Female League with a total of twelve teams and over seventy players actively participating in its inaugural season. The NAFL looks to have a bright future. “When we first started NAFL we honestly believed we would only get 4 teams. To our surprise we got more than expected which shows that the females are very interested and supportive of this idea,” contiuned Lok. “We hope to get more girls interested in this league and by expanding to other games, such as World of Warcraft or even Halo, and believe we can reach more female gamers”.

Thanks to their initial success NAFL has already begun to plan big for the future, and next on the agenda appear to be hopes for hosting their own female LAN event. “We would like to see NAFL become a LAN in the future and we hope to give girls a chance to play against each other, just like how the European female gaming scene does with their female leagues” she said. How far away NAFL LANs are no one could say, but with more professional organizations interested in female Counter Strike teams the heavily male dominated community could see an increased number of female competitors.

Pandemics female squad will be competing in the first season of NAFL. Team captain Amy “ako” Kao said the following about the league: “For any league the first season will be a bumpy ride, but the NAFL is very promising for the female community." When asked how she thought Pandemic would do in the upcoming league, Amy was modest by saying “I think we'll do respectably."


Amy and the rest of Pandemic's ladies opened the NAFL regular season with a convincing 21-9 win.

External Links:
NAFL