The CSGO ESL Premiership in the UK & Ireland will offer upcoming talent the chance to progress to a new ESL Pro Tour.
ESL and DreamHack, both part of MTG, today announced the ESL Pro Tour – a circuit that links over 20 CSGO tournaments and leagues.
ESL says the Pro Tour will feature an aggregate prize pool of over $5m for 2020 from competitions on five different continents, “making it the world’s largest and most lucrative circuit in Counter-Strike’s 20-year history”.
The ESL Pro Tour will combine multiple previously unconnected ESL and DreamHack tournaments into one narrative building towards two grand championships each year.
Tournaments in the ESL Pro Tour will be organized into Challenger and Masters levels. The Challenger level will include DreamHack Open, the Mountain Dew League and ESL’s National Championships (such as the Prem in the UK), serving as a platform for teams to elevate themselves to Masters level tournaments.
Introducing the ESL Pro Tour, a partnership with @DreamHack connecting 20+ competitions into 1 circuit.
Climb your way through Challenger events, such as the #ESLPrem, up to the Masters Championships at #ESLOne & #IEM!
Your path to pro begins now: https://t.co/kL7ADyHwiQ pic.twitter.com/wBpf7kXjLJ
— ESL UK (@ESLUK) September 3, 2019
The collaboration aims to create a ‘more complete’ path from zero to hero for aspiring players, a ‘more compelling’ story to follow for existing CSGO fans, and a ‘more transparent’ structure for new esports fans.
Then, the Masters category will largely consist of arena tournaments with $250,000 or more in prize money and some of the world’s best teams. It will include ESL One powered by Intel, Intel Extreme Masters, DreamHack Masters and the ESL CSGO Pro League.
Teams will win points in the ESL Pro Tour Ranking, with the best competing in two Masters Championship finals each year at ESL One Cologne in Germany and Intel Extreme Masters Katowice in Poland.
“ESL Pro Tour mirrors our ambition to provide up and coming players a clear path to becoming tomorrow’s esports professionals.”
Marcus Lindmark, DreamHack
“ESL’s growth in recent years has led us to rethink what we are doing. We have built some of the world’s most impressive esports tournaments, and it was the time to connect the dots where the outcome is a bigger picture that fits better with our vision for esports,” said Ralf Reichert, CEO at ESL.
“This partnership between ESL and DreamHack will give youths a clearer and more complete path to becoming somebody and a structure that is more welcoming and digestible for new esports fans.”
Marcus Lindmark, co-CEO at DreamHack, added: “This collaboration will provide a deeper meaning and purpose to all our properties, allowing us to provide fans with more thrilling experiences than before. On the other hand, it also represents a much larger and more attractive opportunity for sponsors and media to engage with the esports audience.
“ESL Pro Tour mirrors our ambition to provide up and coming players a clear path to becoming tomorrow’s esports professionals.”
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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.
