The CSGO Esports Championship Series (ECS) finals will return to London’s Wembley SSE Arena on June 23rd to 25th 2017.
The Season 1 ECS finals took place at Wembley last year, while Season 2 was held in California.
Season 3 gets underway on April 14th, and the world’s top CSGO teams will compete for a share of the $1.5m prize pool. The final is being billed as the largest esports event in the UK, in terms of prizing and team stature.
Michele Attisani, co-founder and chief business officer at FACEIT, told Esports News UK: “Last year we had about almost 3,000 people showing up at the event. It was our first ticketed event ever as a company. And the UK is not the easiest market when it comes to getting people to come to esports events, so we were already pretty happy with the results. We feel that we can do even better this year.
“I think most of all we can create a great experience for the fans, players and teams, and we learnt a lot from last year. Regardless of the exact numbers of people showing up to watch the games this year, it will definitely be a great experience.
“In terms of this being the largest CSGO event in the UK, each season of the ECS is about $1.5 million dollars in prize money and participation fees per season. And we have the best teams globally – it’s not just a European event. We also have the best North American teams.
“So it’s a unique opportunity for the British fans and hopefully [those from] the rest of Europe as well – for them to come over and enjoy London for the weekend, and some spectacular Counter-Strike.”
Tickets for the ECS Season Three Finals at The SSE Arena start from £12.99 and can be bought from wembley.csgoleague.com. There are discounts for students and FACEIT account holders.
“We provide tools and our platform to a large number of tournament organisers in the UK. We really want to be an engine of that grassroots growth. From that standpoint I know we have some very interesting projects coming up…”
Michele Attisani, FACEIT
Grassroots push
It’s all well and good hosting global esports events in the UK, but what about the grassroots scene? How can companies like FACEIT improve this, and what do they think of Pro-Am tournaments like the seemingly revolutionary Gfinity Elite Series?
“I’m very happy when I see all these kind of initiatives whether it’s from Gfinity or ESL, I think it’s really important to give more to the community and give more initiatives for local players to grow,” Michele added.
“That’s obviously a huge part of the FACEIT value proposition, the platform supports a very large number of competitions at the grassroots and community level.
“We provide tools and our platform to a large number of tournament organisers in the UK. We really want to be an engine of that grassroots growth.
“From that standpoint I know we have some very interesting projects coming up, but I don’t know what’s public or not… so I’ll just say there’s some cool stuff coming.”
ECS has done other grassroots initiatives in the past including this community caster challenge.
Other announcements
The ECS is partnering with the Esports Arena in Santa Ana which will broadcast the online stage of the ECS Season 3 CSGO tournament.
It’s also partnered with Genius Sports, which will be gathering data, statistics and other information in the league to be sold to betting partners.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
