What is ESL | Electronic Sports League

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• published: 15 Dec 2015
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What is ESL? Esports Maybe is now Esports in a Nutshell Mark Register explains it all: Electronic Sports League is the largest video game events company reaching 70MM spectators, viewing 50MM hours of Esport competitions, awarding $15MM in tournament winnings in 2014, bringing in an estimated $60MM this year, and is now apart of the Swedish digital entertainment company Modern Times Group when they bought up a 74% majority stake for $87MM Deutsche Clanliga was founded by Ralf Reichert at age 24 in 1999 with other business partners then changing the name to Electronic Sports League in 2000 and putting it under their parent company Turtle Entertainment - They started as an online gaming league and magazine renting out servers for competitions In 2007 Intel began sponsoring the prize pool for their flagship competition CS Champions League and renamed it Intel Extreme Masters starting with Counter Strike and Warcraft III, moving into World of Warcraft, Dota, Quake, Starcraft 2, League of Legends, and Hearthstone ESL also obtained contracts to run Blizzcon, League Champion Series, The International, Halo Champion Series, Esports Entertainment Association’s Pro League (which they now own ESEA), and a lot more As long as you pay a small fee and validate your ID as a trusted player you can join ESL’s pool of 5MM Players and 1MM teams in 37 countries to compete in 50 different games climbing up ESL’s Ladders, Open, Amateur, Pro, and Major Leagues by gaining ELO points with each win giving anyone the opportunity to play with the best and become just that In 2011 ESL got heat for waiting 18 months to pay out competition winnings which now is three months or less In August 2015 the CS:GO “doping scandal” gave ESL the free marking wet dream it never even dreamed of. Every major publication reaching every major demographic covered the story and ESL jumped into the mainstream light when they used World Anti-Doping Agency & National Anti Doping Agentur to conduct saliva drug tests on random participants, they didn’t say who they tested or how many but everyone passed surprise surprise. It was a joke but they cashed in on the free marketing and legitimized their league and the world of Esports by using the same drug testing companies physical sport organizations use Founder & CEO Ralf Reichert made a risky gamble on a company he truly believes in and still does. When most of ESL’s investors cashed out when Modern Times Group bought up the controlling share, Ralf held on. Here’s to the crazy ones.