The German tournament organiser ESL has announced today that it will be opening up a Request for Proposal (RFP) process for any new organisations that want to join the ESL and the current 12 team members at the ESL Pro League circuit.
This new member would partake in the “Louvre Agreement”, attributing them a slot in Pro League from Season 14 onwards and attributing them a slice of the total revenue made by the league and other events in the circuit.
While teams that are not partnered with ESL can still qualify for the League through a number of tournaments, this partnership streamlines the process, granting them a permanent spot that has been left vacant after 100 Thieves dissolved their CS:GO division in October of last year.
Last year, the strain of the pandemic forced the German organisation to reduce the number of teams present at their Pro League, moving the competition back to a region-based online tournament similar to its earlier incarnations.
Nevertheless, ESL managed to find success during this period, exceeding the numbers of past years. Just in 2020, its audience watched up to 88 million hours of Counter-Strike.
2020 was the year that ESL and some of the biggest names in esports bit the bullet and decided to throw significant energy and resources into a new approach: an approach that shares governance, that shares responsibility, that shares revenues and that shares success.
Alex Inglot, Commissioner at the ESL Pro League
This RFP process comes just days into the start of Season 13, which was originally set to take place on LAN, it was moved back to an online environment due to the current travel restrictions in Europe.
Any teams or organisations that are interested in being a part of this ESL project have until the 25th of March to fill a form on their website or to contact the league’s Vice President of Operations, Hans Jagnow, by e-mail (h.jagnow@ext.eslgaming.com).
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