(London, February 16, 2015) – ESL, the world's largest esports company, has announced the launch of the ESL UK Premiership, the largest UK esports tournament since 2010. Teams will compete over two months to attend the offline finals, located at one of the United Kingdom’s largest consumer events, London MCM Comic Con. The tournament series will feature Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends, with a total prize pool of £12,000.
Teams can qualify for the tournament by entering one of three online qualifiers, held by the ESL on their new tournament platform, play.eslgaming.com. The top two teams from each qualifier will advance to the group stages, where the teams will earn prize money for every game they win. The top four teams will then advance to the offline final, where they will compete in front of over 110,000 spectators, on ESL UK’s largest esports stage to date. The tournament series will be broadcast from ESL’s first UK studio, live to the world’s leading video platform for gaming, Twitch.tv.
“We’ve seen huge growth in our community in the United Kingdom since the launch of a dedicated UK ESL office in 2013, and witnessed remarkable feats of skill from home grown esports athletes within our tournaments and competitions” – said Peter Mather, Community Manager at ESL UK. “We think it is time for us to step up our game, and start preparing our teams and players for the biggest stages in Europe, the ESL UK Premiership will help us, and the teams achieve this”.
“2014 was a record breaking year for UK esports; we saw over 1 million unique viewers for our Counter Strike activity, for UK teams, tournaments, talent and supported by UK sponsorship” – said James Dean, Managing Director of ESL UK. “This is extremely significant for the growth of the esports industry within the UK, not just on an international level. With ESL’s support, one day, we hope to stage UK teams in European and Global $1m tournaments”
The first qualifier is scheduled to start on Monday 23rd February 2015. For more information visit the ESL UK Premiership website at pro.eslgaming.com/uk or ESL’s online news portal at www.eslgaming.com.
