Valve to support ESL One Cologne

ESL One Cologne will run from August 20-23, with the group stage, held inside ESL's esports arena, leading up to the playoffs, which will take place at a 15,000-seater stadium to be built inside the Lanxess Arena.

The top eight from ESL One Katowice will square off with eight other teams, to be determined by qualifiers held in Europe, North America and Asia. The winning side will take home $100,000, almost half of the tournament's $250,000 prize purse.

Lanxess Arena will stage the ESL One Cologne playoffs 

With Valve's support, ESL has guaranteed a number of "special features" leading up to and throughout the event, which will obviously include purchasable team stickers and the Pick'Em Challenge.

"After CS:GO surpassed one million concurrent viewers at ESL One Katowice, we now intend to raise the bar even higher with ESL One Cologne," said Ulrich Schulze, Managing Director of Pro Gaming at ESL. "

"By bringing teams from all over the world to the largest indoor arena in Germany, we are confident to make it the biggest and best CS:GO event ever hosted."

For the first time in the history of a major, there will be offline regional qualifiers to determine the final participants. Below you can find the dates and locations for these qualifiers, which will all be streamed live on Twitch:

Asian qualifier - Kuala Lumpur - July 18-19

 European qualifier - Cologne - July 25-26

 North American qualifier - Burbank - August 1-2

The following eight teams have secured places at ESL One Cologne after finishing in the top eight in Katowice:

fnatic	NiP
Virtus.pro	EnVyUs
mousesports	Keyd Stars
Null element Na`Vi	Team SoloMid

Tickets for ESL One Cologne are already on sale at Eventim, with prices ranging from 41 to 219 euros.