The history of ESL Pro League began in 2015, and the league was founded by two organizations - the German Electronic Sports League (ESL) and American E-Sports Entertainment Association League (ESEA). In the spring of 2015, they announced the creation of a joint project — CS:GO championship, which will unite teams from two continents in the fight for a prize fund of $500,000 each season. Then all participants were divided into two regional divisions of 12 teams.
Over time, both the number of teams and the prize fund increased — for example, in 2018 it was already a million dollars. The tournament began to be held twice a year, its composition is no longer limited to teams from Europe and North America, which makes the course of the competition even more unpredictable.
How ESL Pro League has changed
The ESEA organization, which initially participated in the creation of the ProTour, eventually faded into the background and began to host its own league called ESEA Premier (later known as ESEA MDL). It can be considered as a lower division in relation to the ESL Pro League, and the most successful teams from it can make it to the EPL tournaments.
The new stage for ESL Pro Tour began with season 13. In 2020, ESL decided to update the structure of the tournament by concluding exclusive cooperation contracts with 11 top esports organizations. These include such teams as NAVI, Astralis, ENCE, FaZe and other teams. All of them receive their share of income from the series tournaments, and are also insured against relegation to a lower division. To date, the number of partner organizations has increased to 15.
What is the format of ESL Pro League now?
In the current, sixteenth season of ESL Pro League 24 teams are fighting for a prize fund of more than $800,000, and the playoffs will take place from September 27 to October 2. The team that wins the grand final will receive $175,000, and the second and third places will receive $70,000 and $35,000 respectively. In addition, teams receive additional rewards for each match won in the group stage.
In this case, the tournament is played according to a time-tested scheme: the group tournament is played in the round-robin format, which allows all teams in the group to meet each other once. The leaders of each group advance directly to the quarterfinals, and the teams from second and third place — to the lower rounds of the playoffs. The final stage is played in a single elimination format with best-of-three matches. The exception is the grand final, in which the winner is determined in a best-of-five series. And who will become it this time will become known soon — the grand final will take place this Sunday, October 2.
