On Thursday the organizer tournaments, ESL issued a statement that it would make special efforts to improve the situation for North American teams. Ulrich Schulze, one of the company's management representatives, invited other participants in the eSports scene to contribute to solving this problem. The first steps in the plan proposed by the tournament organizer will include a "more developed path" for teams that strive to get into the ESL Pro League. Additionally, the reward structure for ESEA tournaments will be redesigned to place more emphasis on competition between teams rather than individual play.
The purpose of these measures – to breathe new life into Counter Strike competitions in the US, as they experienced a significant decline in 2020. Due to the pandemic, the American scene became isolated from the rest of the world, and several well-known teams decided to disband their rosters or move to the increasingly popular Valorant.
Ulrich Schulze admits that the transition to online due to the coronavirus pandemic was not the only reason for this situation – decisions made by ESL itself were also influenced, in particular, the abandonment of regional divisions in January 2020. Now the tournament organizer plans to create a working group that will rectify the current situation.
