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ESL (company)

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Electronic Sports League
FormerlyDeutsche Clanliga
SportPC and console video games
Founded1997
CEORalf Reichert
ContinentEurope
Official websitehttp://www.esl.eu/

The Electronic Sports League (ESL, formerly ESPL) is an eSports league, which is operated by Turtle Entertainment in Cologne, Germany.[1][2][3] Today it has more than 6,100,000 registered members and consists of over 1,000,000 teams, which have played over 12.1 million games[4] in addition to leagues, tournaments and VERSUS, the ESL's own online matchmaking. The ESL supports over 50 games in different genres through various national and international leagues.[4] Games are usually broadcast via Twitch.tv, or played publicly at conventions such as Gamescom or CeBIT.[5][6] ESL also operates the Intel Extreme Masters world championships.

History

ESL was founded in 1997 as Deutsche Clanliga (DeCL) by today's CEO, Ralf Reichert, and members of SK Gaming. It was renamed in 2000, making it the oldest league of its kind in the world.[2][3][7] In July 2015, Modern Times Group (MTG) bought a majority share within Turtle Entertainment for $86 million.[8][9][10]

Until June 2015, the Electronic Sports League was operated by the German company Turtle Entertainment GmbH, headquartered in Cologne. The main sources of income are sponsorship revenue, online advertising, merchandising and international licensing business. Licenses to operate their own national branches of ESL are assigned to partners from across Europe.

Currently, the ESL is represented by 12 licensing partners.[citation needed] The majority of users, however, still comes from Germany. Early in 2006, Turtle Entertainment acquired its biggest German competitor, GIGA League, and parts of GIGA. As a consequence, the GIGA League was terminated. At the end of 2007, however, Turtle Entertainment ended its involvement with the GIGA.

In early 2007, Turtle Entertainment announced a cooperation with Chinese Online League Pro Gamer League (PGL), to establish the ESL in China.[11]

On July 1 in 2015, Turtle Entertainment sold 74% of their stakes in ESL to the Swedish media company Modern Times Group for 78,000,000 €.[12]

ESL will be partnering with Activision to run the Call of Duty World League.[13]

ESL owns a filming studio in Burbank, California, United States.[14]

Structure

The ESL is represented at both the national and international level:

National Competitions

At the national level, the ESL operates:

  • ESL Ladders and ESL Amateur Series (EAS) for advanced players
  • ESL Pro Series (EPS) as a "national elite class" and "e-sports league" for the top players

International Competition

At the international level in 15 European countries, the ESL operates:

  • ESL Ladders and ESL Amateur Series (EAS) for beginners and recreational players
  • ESL WC3L Series (WC3L), the Warcraft III Clan League in international premier class and world team championships.
  • ESL European Nations Championship (ENC) for national teams. It determines which nation is the best at e-sports in Europe.
  • ESL One (formerly ESL Major Series (EMS) and International Premiership Series) for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive majors, formerly for the best players of games that were not supported in the IEM

Competitions

ESL Ladder

The ESL Ladder allows new participants (teams or individual players) to enter at any time, and individual encounters can be initiated on demand at any time. There is also the possibility of initiating encounters through the ESL Instant Challenger (EIC), the ESL Smart Challenger (ESC), or the ESL Auto Challenger (EAC).

ESL Amateur Series

An ESL Amateur Series is opened when players voice great demand for a specific competition or when sponsors can be found. The series is played according to the Round ESL System, meaning that there are several divisions, across which players can raise or descend in position. Each participant with a Premium or Trusted status can join the EAS at any time. In addition, any team or player from the ESL Ladder gets a weekly opportunity to ascend into the EAS without the need for a premium membership. Through successful games in the ESL Amateur Series, teams and players qualify to enter the professional section of the ESL, the ESL Pro Series. In September 2012, the ESL announced plans to terminate the Amateur Series and migrate it to a new system, the A-Series.

ESL Meisterschaft

The ESL Meisterschaft (formerly known as ESL Pro Series or EPS) is the "pinnacle" of the Electronic Sports League. In the ESL Meisterschaft, the following games are currently played:[15]

ESL A Series

The A Series system is similar to the ESL Amateur Series, although there are no competitive matches in the A-Series Open. The A-Series Premier, which is restricted to players with a premium membership, offers weekly competitive matches which allow players to qualify for higher tournaments, such as the EMS One or the German ESL Meisterschaft.[16]

ESL ESEA Pro League

The ESL ESEA Pro League (also known as EEPL) is a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league hosted by the ESEA and the ESL. There are two divisions, a North American one and a European one, with each division containing 12 teams. During the season, weekly matches are held on ESEA's servers in double-round-robin format, where every team plays each other twice in a best-of-one series.[17] The top four teams of each division qualify for the LAN finals, which are held at ESL's Los Angeles or German studio.[18]

For 2015, the league has committed to paying out $1,000,000 in prize money, spread over two seasons, plus full travel support for the finals.[19]

ESL One Series

The ESL One marquee is used for a variety of purposes. Historically, it was used to refer to an association of international pro leagues, in which participants compete in games that the EPS does not support. However, in recent times, ESL has used it to refer to offline tournaments run by itself in a variety of games,[20] like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive[21][22] and Dota 2.[23] The two ESL One events of the year, along with some DreamHack events, are part of the Valve-sponsored CS:GO Major series. The ESL Majors have been: EMS One Katowice 2014, ESL One Cologne 2014, ESL One Katowice 2015, and ESL One Cologne 2015.

ESL One tournaments were usually considered to be below the Intel Extreme Masters set of tournaments, but as of late both marquees carry equal significance.[citation needed][original research?]

  • Season 1
    • Call of Duty 2 (4 on 4)
    • Counter- Strike: Source (5 on 5)
    • Counter-Strike 1.6 Female (5 on 5)
    • Dawn of War (clan war)
    • Defense of the Ancient (5 on 5)
    • Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (6 on 6)
    • Fifa 2007 (clan war)
    • Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (1 on 1)
    • Unreal Tournament 2004 (1 on 1 and 4 on 4)
  • Season II
    • Call of Duty 4 (4 on 4)
    • Counter-Strike: Source (5 on 5)
    • Counter-Strike: 1.6 Female (5 on 5)
    • Dawn of War: Dark Crusade (Clan war)
    • DotA (5 on 5)
    • Enemy Territory (6 on 6)
    • FIFA 08 (Clan war)
    • Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (1 on 1)
    • Team Fortress 2 (6 on 6)
    • Unreal Tournament 3 (Clan war)
  • Season III
    • Call of Duty 4 (4 on 4)
    • Counter-Strike: Source (5 on 5)
    • Counter-Strike Female (5 on 5)
    • DotA (5 on 5)
    • Dawn of War (5 on 5)
    • FIFA 08 (5 on 5)
    • PES 2008 (1 on 1)
    • Team Fortress 2 (6 on 6)
    • Unreal Tournament 3 (1 on 1)
    • Trackmania Nations Forever (1 on 1)

ESL WC3L Series

The ESL WC3L Series began on 12 December 2002. It is the highest Warcraft III Clan League of ESL, in which each season the twelve best teams compete in qualifying tournaments and relegation to a prize of 30,000 euros.

Counter-Strike Champions League

The Counter-Strike Champions League represented the European Counter-Strike League. In it the best teams competed against each other from across Europe.

CSCL has been replaced by the Intel Extreme Masters for Europe's best clans in Counter-Strike, and the best individual players in Warcraft III. The Intel Extreme Masters differ from the Counter-Strike Champions League in the first place by a highly doped prize money and a Europe-wide e-Sport Tour: the so-called Global Challenges. In a figurative sense as the UEFA Champions could be the Intel Extreme Masters thus denote League of gaming.

  • Season I (final: 22 to 24 February 2005)
    • 1. Team64 (Germany)
    • 2. SK Gaming (Germany)
    • 3. Team9 (Norway)
    • 4. Meet Your Makers (Denmark)
  • Season II (final: 14 to 16 July 2005)
    • 1. Virtus.pro (Poland)
    • 2. a-Losers (Germany)
    • 3. Begrip.ru (Russia)
    • 4. Hostile Records (France)
  • Season III (Finale: 17 to 19 March 2006)

Intel Extreme Masters

Main article: Intel Extreme Masters

The Intel Extreme Masters is the world's highest level of the Electronic Sports League.

Trusted Player

The ESL offers the user the opportunity to be classified as a trusted player, a measure to prevent persons losing or gaining a bad reputation from creating new identities while identifying the real person corresponding to an online nickname. Trusted player status is increasingly required to gain access to ESL tournaments.

An introduction of Trusted Pro, a merge of the former four trust levels into two stages, trusted and trusted pro, is planned, but not implemented yet.[24]

Trust Level 1

To acquire this trust level, players request a letter from the ESL, which contains a 20-digit code to be used for online registration on the ESL page. In addition, this letter contains a Player Card, which is used for identification at ESL events. Trust level 1 costs 8,95 € and needs to be renewed every three years.

Trust Level 2

Trust level 2 requires players to provide their identity card number and is free of charge, but it is a prerequisite that the user already has trust level 1. The number is not saved due to privacy concerns.

Trust Level 3

To gain trust level 3, players need to provide a copy of their identity card or passport along with a signed consent form stating that they will follow the rules of ESL and only own one single user account. As an alternative to sending the necessary documents per mail, it is possible to leave them personally at an ESL event. In both cases, a processing fee of about 2 euros is required. Again, the identity document copy is destroyed immediately after the review. Processing level 3 requests takes about three to ten days.

Trust Level 4

In 2007, ESL introduced trust level 4, which could be gained by ordering a young or classic version of the ESL VISA card. This credit card, technically a regular Visa card issued by the Landesbank Berlin and customized with an ESL logo, was available in three different colors and three different tiers (prepaid, young and classic). Because of the unavailability of the young or classic cards for players younger than 18 (the prepaid version of the card was available for underage players, but did not qualify them for level 4) and the monthly fees charged for the VISA services, the ESL stated that level 4 would never become a required status for any league. The ESL VISA card is not available anymore.[25]

Trusted Pro

In February 2011, Trusted Pro was introduced in cooperation with the Deutsche Post as the safest verification stage.[26] Secure identification of the user is achieved by E-mail letter. As a precursory measure, the applicant needs to prove his identity via Postident.[27] Because a contract is concluded with the Deutsche Post, applicants must be at least 18 years old. The price of Trusted Pro is 7.85 € for three years of membership, making it the least expensive trust level. Trusted Pro members also receive an exclusive player card.[28] First time customers receive a special award, which is displayed in their player profile.

Consoles Sports League

The Consoles Sports League was founded in 2006 and provides a platform for a professional setup and an organized game and league system. Players use it to find teammates and get access to rankings. In addition, the CSL organizes tournaments for console gamers and provides material and financial awards.

European Nations Championship

The European Nations Championship has taken place since 2004. It is a national team competition, where it determines which European nation has the best e-athletes. The ENC holds events in Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Source, Warcraft III, FIFA, Call of Duty 4, and DotA. The final takes place every year in August at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany.

ESL European National Championship
Discipline Winner Second Third
2004
Counter-Strike  Sweden  Austria  Germany
Warcraft III  Sweden  France  Denmark
2005
Counter-Strike  Germany  Bulgaria  Austria
Warcraft III  Sweden  France  Germany
FIFA  Germany  Russia  Austria
UT 2004  Germany  Netherlands  Sweden
2006
Counter-Strike  Sweden  Norway  Poland
Warcraft III  Sweden  Bulgaria  Germany
FIFA  Germany  Hungary  Russia
2007
Counter-Strike  Poland  Germany  Denmark
Warcraft III  Finland  Sweden  Germany
FIFA  Germany  Ukraine  Hungary
2008
Counter-Strike  Sweden  Germany  Denmark
Warcraft III  Germany  Finland  Sweden
FIFA  Poland  Germany  Romania
Counter-Strike: Source  Czech Republic  France  Slovenia
2009
Counter-Strike  Sweden  Germany  Poland
Warcraft III  Denmark  Netherlands  Germany
FIFA  Germany  Ukraine  Austria
Counter-Strike: Source  Germany  France  Italy
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare  Germany  Finland  Poland
DotA  Ukraine  Romania  Bulgaria
Perpetual Medal
Space Land Gold Silver Bronze Total
1.  Germany 9 4 5 18
2.  Sweden 7 1 2 10
3.  Poland 2 0 3 5
4.  Finland 1 2 0 3
5.  Czech Republic 1 0 0 1
6.  Bulgaria 0 2 1 3
7.  France 0 3 0 3
8.  Austria 0 1 3 4
9.  Russia 0 1 1 2
10.  Hungary 0 1 1 2
11.  Netherlands 0 1 0 1
12.  Norway 0 1 0 1
13.  Ukraine 0 1 0 1
14.  Denmark 1 0 3 4
15.  Romania 0 0 1 1
16.  Slovenia 0 0 1 1

References

ESL One Manila

  1. ^ Old ESPL page Web Archive
  2. ^ a b "Turtle Entertainment". Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  3. ^ a b "Turtle Entertainment". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  4. ^ a b ESL Homepage - http://play.eslgaming.com/global Retrieved on March 4, 2016
  5. ^ "ESL TV". Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  6. ^ ESL. "ESL Arena at gamescom 2015". Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  7. ^ "Ralf Reichert". Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  8. ^ "MTG acquires majority stake in ESL for $86 Million". theScore. theScore.
  9. ^ "MTG to acquire the majority stake in the world's largest esports company".
  10. ^ "MTG invests in world's largest esports company ESL".
  11. ^ Official http://www.esl.eu/de/news/34243/NewsforChinaexpansion
  12. ^ http://www.hltv.org/news/15325-esl-sells-majority-stake-to-mtg, ESL sells majority stake to MTG, hltv.org, 2015-07-01
  13. ^ Keshav (October 28, 2015). "ESL confirms they're partnering with Activision for Call of Duty World League Pro Division". Charlie Intel. Retrieved January 4, 2015.
  14. ^ Dave, Paresh (October 23, 2015). "ESports promoter ESL becomes world's biggest video-game events company". LA Times. Retrieved January 4, 2015.
  15. ^ Turtle Entertainment GmbH. "ESL: EPS - Summer Season 2012 - ESL Pro Series - Germany - ESL". Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  16. ^ German original reads: "... gibt es ein Pflichtspiel pro Woche sowie ESL Premium als Restriktion". Most probably this means that players need to have Premium status to attend, so I translated it this way.
  17. ^ stich. "ESL ESEA Pro League format revealed". HLTV.
  18. ^ MIRAA. "ESL and ESEA to host $1 million league". HLTV.
  19. ^ official announcement http://pro.eslgaming.com/csgo/proleague/news/worlds-largest-counter-strike-league-to-be-hosted-by-esl-and-esea/
  20. ^ Drall, Pranjall. "ESL Announces $ 1 Million USD Prize Pool for ESL One events". GosuGamers.
  21. ^ MIRAA. "ESL One Cologne with $250,000". HLTV.
  22. ^ Striker. "ESL One Katowice with $250,000". HLTV.
  23. ^ Kim, Sovann. GosuGamers title=ESL One 2015 announced for June 20th http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/news/29319-esl-one-2015-announced-for-june-20th title=ESL One 2015 announced for June 20th. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); Missing pipe in: |url= (help)
  24. ^ ESL news http://www.esl.eu/de/playercard_portal/news/143676/newsonthemergerofTrusted1to4tothenewTrusted
  25. ^ "ESL VISA card, official announcement (german)". Electronic Sports League. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  26. ^ Official News http://www.turtle-entertainment.de/?home&news&1288totheTrustedProIntroduction
  27. ^ Postident is a procedure where individuals are personally identified by Deutsche Post employees, usually by showing their identity card to a mailman or at a local post office.
  28. ^ ESL playercard portal http://www.esl.eu/de/playercard_portal/
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