ESL Pro League Season 23 to feature arena playoffs in Stockholm
ESL have announced that ESL Pro League Season 23 will see the long-awaited return of live audiences for the Counter-Strike event.
The Annexet in Stockholm will host the eight-team playoffs of Pro League Season 23 from March 13-15.
The event will feature four Best of 3 contests on Friday, before Saturday’s Semi-Finals and Sunday’s Third-place decider and Grand Final.
ESL Pro League Season 23 sees a return to an arena crowd
The event will mark Pro League’s first live audience since pre-COVID, hosting an arena playoff for the first time since 2019.
ESL Pro League Season 23 beats Season 24 to the punch, with ESL’s Katowice event originally expected to be the first arena return before the announcement of ESL’s Stockholm plans.
The news comes soon after the announcement that ESL Pro League Season 24 would feature various format changes to accommodate the return to Katowice.
Whereas ESL Pro League Season 24 is reduced to just 16 teams to allow all matches to be played on LAN in Poland, ESL Pro League Season 23 will feature the full 24 teams with two online stages.
Eight teams will progress from Stage 1, then eight teams from Stage 2 will progress to the LAN finals, culminating in the live event in Stockholm.
Marc Winther, Director Esports – Counter-Strike at ESL FACEIT Group, provided the following statement:
“We’re excited to bring ESL Pro League back to this setting, as Counter-Strike is best played in front of a live audience when the stakes are at their highest, and the trophy needs to be hoisted,
“Stockholm and Counter-Strike are the perfect match filled with a rich history together. We’ll be looking forward to welcoming the community to experience the rawness of ESL Pro League.”
The event features a $1,000,000 prize pool, $600,000 of which is dedicated to Club Share – prize money specifically awarded to organisations.
The winning team will receive $250,000, $150,000 of which will be Club Share.
All Stage 2 invites, and nine of the Stage 1 invites, will be determined by VRS, with the remaining seven slots decided by ECL Season 50 regional winners and DreamHack winners as follows:
- Parivision – ECL Season 50 EU
- NRG – ECL Season 50 NA
- Gaimin Gladiators – ECL Season 50 SA
- Lynn Vision – ECL Season 50 AS
- Semper Fi – ECL Season 50 OCE
- Monte – DreamHack Open Stockholm
- M80 – DreamHack Open Atlanta
Stage 1 will begin on March 1 2026, with Stage 2 beginning on March 6.
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