The Electronic Sports League was established in 2000 as the successor to the Deutsche Clanliga, which had been established in 1997. The business started with a gaming magazine and an online gaming league. It also leased out servers for gaming tournaments.
The Intel Extreme Masters Katowice, hosted by ESL, was the most-viewed esports tournament in history in 2015. Over 100,000 people attended the event, and over one million people watched it on Twitch.
Modern Times Group (MTG) purchased a 74% interest in ESL from its parent company, Turtle Entertainment, for $86 million in July 2015.
ESL confirmed its involvement in "esports in Cinema" in the same month, which would broadcast live esports tournaments to over 1,500 movie theatres across the world. Esports in Cinema included coverage of Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive from ESL One Cologne 2015 and ESL One New York, as well as a documentary called "All Work All Play," which follows the rise of esports and features pro gamers as they prepare for the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship.
ESL collaborated with the National Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency to implement an anti-drug policy after a player openly confessed to using Adderall after ESL One Katowice 2015. It was the first international esports organization to implement anti-doping policies. For its events, random testing for substances banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency was implemented. Using performance-enhancing substances may result in decreased prize money and tournament points, as well as disqualification and a two-year ban from ESL tournaments.
In August 2015, ESL collaborated with publisher Valve for ESL One Cologne 2015, which took place at the Lanxess Arena and featured 16 teams competing in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. At the event, ESL used randomized drug testing. All of the tests were negative. With over 27 million spectators, the event was the biggest and most-watched CS: GO competition at the time.
ESL hosted a Dota 2 tournament at Madison Square Garden Theater in October 2015.
In the same month, ESL and ArenaNet collaborated to create the ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League, one of seven official ESL Pro Leagues.
In November 2015, ESL hosted their tenth arena event in the SAP Center in San Jose, California. The tournament was the biggest Counter-Strike event in America at the time, with over 10 million spectators on Twitch. For the 2016 Call of Duty World League, ESL teamed with Activision for the Pro Division.
Following prior partnerships, ESL announced in November 2015 that it has acquired the E-Sports Entertainment Association (ESEA), the organizers of the ESEA League. The ESL CS:GO Pro League employs the ESEA anti-cheat system. ESL tournaments, as well as offline finals, are held on the ESEA platform. ESL is a member of the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC), non-profit members’ organization dedicated to maintaining integrity in competitive esports, as of July 2016. For the Hamburg DOTA 2 Major in 2017, ESL collaborated with Mercedes-Benz.
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ESL established a collaboration with 1xBet in March 2021.
Competitions
ESL organizes tournaments all around the world, collaborating with companies like Blizzard Entertainment, Riot Games, Valve, Microsoft, Wargaming, and others to stage thousands of gaming competitions each year. On a national and international level, ESL contestants are supported. The following are some of their most noteworthy competitions:
ESL Play
ESL Play is the world's most popular esports platform. Tournaments and ladders are available for all games and ability levels. The ESL Accessible, the league's inaugural cup, is open to all players, including novices. Entry criteria exist for ESL Major events, and victory at this level is needed to compete in the ESL Pro competition. ESL Major, on the other hand, includes Go4 Cups, which are free events accessible to the public. This level of competition requires the previous qualifying.
ESL National Championships
ESL National Championships are ESL Pro tournaments conducted in different nations that are focused on a particular area. The German championship, ESL Meisterschaft, was founded in 2002 and is the world's oldest esports competition. Since 2010, the ESL UK Premiership, a regional esports competition, has been ESL's biggest regional event. National Championships are held throughout the globe to promote local esports competitions.
Battlefield 4, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Halo, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Mortal Kombat, Smite, StarCraft II, World of Tanks, and Rainbow Six Siege all have ESL National Championships.
The ESL Pro Tour
The ESL Pro Tour is a year-round circuit that qualifies players for major championship events via a rating system.
ESL will feature three games for the ESL Pro Tour in 2020: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, StarCraft II, and WarCraft III. IEM Katowice 2021 (for the three championships) and ESL One Cologne 2020 are the two main championship tournaments for those titles (for Counter-Strike only).
The ESL One Cologne was conducted online in August 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
ESL One
ESL One refers to the most renowned offline competitions in a number of genres, such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2.
The Valve-sponsored CS:GO Major series often includes ESL One tournaments. EMS One Katowice 2014, ESL One Cologne 2014, ESL One Katowice 2015, ESL One Cologne 2015, ESL One Cologne 2016, IEM Katowice 2019, and ESL One Rio 2020 were the ESL Counter-Strike Majors. ESL has hosted six of the fourteen Valve Major events as of December 2019.
Extreme Masters by Intel
The Intel Extreme Masters is the longest-running esports event series in the world.
ESL Technology
To prevent online cheating in an increasingly competitive sector, ESL developed the ESL Wire Anti Cheat software. ESL improved their tournament software in 2015 by incorporating Wargaming's "Battle API" into its events. Through the API application, the API makes player and game data accessible. ESL Matchmaking, which utilizes ESL's API to match participants based on ability, was launched the same year. In 2016, Microsoft collaborated with ESL to develop an Xbox software that allows users to access the ESL tournament system through Xbox Live on Xbox One.
AnyKey
AnyKey is a collaboration between ESL and Intel to engage underrepresented members of the gaming community, such as women, LGBTQ individuals, and people of color, in tournaments. AnyKey is divided into two research and implementation teams. AnyKey has developed and implemented a code of conduct to address an inclusion policy for esports events and online broadcasts, as well as the harassment problems that underrepresented groups experience. Women's competitions have also been established and sponsored by the organisation. Inclusion in the gaming community is still being researched and implemented by the two teams.