The League, an ultra-exlusive dating app for "ambitious high-achieving professionals" officially launched this month in Chicago. But after being live in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and generating charges of elitism and being called icky and bad for love, can the app really succeed in a town like Chicago, which is known for rejecting pretentiousness often associated with the coasts?
The League works like this: The app is invite only and requires would-be users to apply to the startup's waiting list. Pulling information from a user's LinkedIn and Facebook pages, The League accepts people based on things like where they went to school, job titles, and social media influence. The company says it's a place for "classy professionals with high-quality profiles" and only accepts people with "high-quality photos."
The League says its wait list is "hundreds of thousands" of people long across its four markets. In Chicago, the app has selected 2,500 people out of the more than 10,000 that signed up, the company says.
If you're accepted into The League, it will block you from seeing coworkers and friends in order to protect your privacy. And the app lets you set filters, like height preferences, religion, neighborhood and other factors to only see profiles that match your preferences.
"There was a high demand in Chicago, coupled with the fact that the City is a hotbed for startups and entrepreneurs, the decision was really a no brainer," The League Founder and CEO Amanda Bradford said in a statement. Bradford founded The League in 2014 after graduating from Stanford.
Chicago, based on its size, number of millennials, and "high-achieving professionals," certainly--at least on paper--makes it a natural place for The League to expand. But my guess is this will generate plenty of eye rolls, especially from Chicago singles whose dating preferences aren't tied to a person's job or where they went to school.
But Bradford has heard this criticism before. She rejects the elitist label because The League isn't based on how much money you make, but rather your desire to succeed.
"Anyone can apply and join the League regardless of their income, the family they’re from, their profession, or what schools they’ve attended," Bradford said in response to criticism from Stanford students earlier this year. "Just like most people at Stanford are not trust fund kids from Atherton, most people in The League did not come from wealth or expensive private schools. Are there some? Of course. No one is denying the fact that success often breeds success. But the common thread in the League community, as I would guess is the same at your school, is the desire to be successful and having the ambition and work-ethic to make an impact somewhere."
With studies showing that many dating apps are leaving users dissatisfied, apps like The League could provide an improved experience compared to Match and Tinder (the startup's Twitter page uses the hashtag #getmeoffTinder). But in a town where people don't even like to stand in line at the bar, I'm not sure Chicago's going to want to wait in line for a dating app.
