IEM Melbourne with $250,000 in August announced

ESL has announced its return to Australia with a $250,000 Intel Extreme Masters stop in Melbourne, which will culminate on August 22-23.

The final stages of the event will headline the 2020 edition of the Melbourne Esports Open, held at the Melbourne & Olympic Parks and its 15,000-seater Rod Laver Arena, home to the Australian Open.

IEM Melbourne will mark ESL's first venture into the Victorian capital and its fourth venture into Australia as a whole, where the tournament organizer has previously hosted three Intel Extreme Masters stops in Sydney from 2017-2019.

Details about the CS:GO tournament are scarce at the moment, but so far it's clear it will match the size of the previous two Sydney editions with $250,000 in prizemoney and 16 teams in total.

The tournament's timing complies with Valve's requirements for the two competitions which will help determine teams directly invited to the 2020 Fall Major. ESL's VP of Pro Gaming, Michal Blicharz, has stated that ESL will propose two events to Valve for this purpose, with neither being ESL One Cologne, which points to IEM Melbourne as one of the two.