EPL Commissioner on new Louvre additions: "We didn't have any teams from the CIS region comparable to the three that we finally chose"

With the help of ESL Pro League Commissioner Alexander Inglot and Heroic CEO Joachim Haraldsen, we peek behind the curtain of the $20 million deal that saw three new organizations enter in partnership with ESL and find answers to some of the key questions surrounding the new additions.

In late October, it was announced that after a long and rigorous process that saw over 40 parties express interest, FURIA, BIG, and HEROIC would be entering a long-term partnership with ESL after joining the 'Louvre Agreement,' the deal that offers its member teams guaranteed participation in every ESL Pro League season and a potential claim to spots in other ESL Pro Tour competitions, as well as significant revenue share from both products.

The three organizations bid close to a whopping $20 million combined to join the agreement, which will see the list of ESL member teams expanded to 15 names in 2022, with BIG and FURIA joining in time for the kick-off of the next season and HEROIC's partnership starting in the latter half of next year.

To peek behind the curtain of the deal and understand the process that began all the way back in March, when the Commissioner's office launched a Request for Proposals with the intent to replace the withdrawn 100 Thieves, and led to the induction of three new Members into the Louvre Agreement, we spoke to Alexander Inglot, the ESL Pro League Commissioner.

Inglot was there from the beginning of the process and helped sift through the applicants and eventually guide the existing member organizations in their decision on whom to induct into their ranks.

Weeding "the dreamers" out of 40+ applicants and setting a $3 million floor

When speaking on the topic of the early phases of the choosing process, the Commissioner explained what criteria he and his team used to make sure that only realistic candidates would remain in the running. As you could imagine, not every one of over 40 applications was up to par with the expectations, in some cases due to their lack of current presence in CS:GO or even esports as whole, and it was important to whittle that number down to a select group who ticked off all the boxes that the Commissioner felt the member teams should.

"The criteria included a performance legacy, market forecast and vision — in terms of geography and how ambitious they were —, fan engagement strategies, infrastructure and personnel. It was a pretty significant amount of work we expected teams to deliver," Inglot explained, saying that this alone scared some of the candidates off.

Naturally, a large investment was expected of the applicants, as well, and that was an effective way to find only the most serious candidates and "weed out the dreamers," as Inglot put it.

"Our message started with 'please, be aware you're probably going to have to make a seven-digit investment,' and we lost a few people there. And a little bit later we said we're expecting numbers to be $3 million or more, and then we lost a whole bunch then," Inglot said, laughing. "That seemed to be the magic number that scared people off."

However, even after being faced with the requirement of a large investment, at least 10 organizations remained, and that meant the beginning of the real work for the Commissioner's office as they began judging the applicants based on the aforementioned factors to come up with the best-fitting parties for the potential membership, scoring them accordingly to make recommendations to the existing member teams.

Financial bids were not the only or even the biggest factor in final phase

Once the scoring stage ended, five candidates — two of which have remained unnamed, but everything suggests these were notable names with a legacy in CS:GO — stayed in the running, and the process moved into a financial phase.

"We already knew that if any of those five teams won, or any combination, we felt confident that those would be a net positive to the project," Inglot said. "Then we had a couple of phases of bidding, unapologetically to try and see if we could get some good financial bids in because it is still revenue that is distributed to the members that comes in."

While the size of the bids clearly played a big role in the final decision, according to Inglot it wasn't the only component that was considered when deciding between the final group of candidates, nor was it even the biggest factor — or not for everyone, at least.

"No one's going to naively say that finances aren't important, but they have to be weighed up across the whole mix. Not everyone got the same score, and we also knew each of the five teams brought very different benefits. Sometimes you know that, actually, an organization brings this intangible and that's worth so much more than money, whereas another one doesn't bring that, so money becomes more important."

"We understood the limitations for the existing membership that we had, we wanted to address that, we wanted to make sure that NA was addressed in some shape, and then we wanted organizations that either showed an ambition in terms of their performance, or fan engagement and creativity, or new markets, or growth. It was really a combination of all of those factors that helped each of the members decide where they were going to put their votes in this process and why we were comfortable."

What made FURIA, BIG, and Heroic stand out?

Inglot didn't specify how the bids differed and who had to make a larger investment to make up for a lack of those intangible factors, but it is clear what appeal he and the existing member organizations saw in FURIA apart from the financial aspect, for example, as it is the first Brazilian brand inducted into the Louvre Agreement.

"There was a lot of alignment. We all knew Brazil was going to be important, we all know NA is something we want to address," he said.

"FURIA gave us a foothold in Brazil, which felt like such an obvious place for us to try and focus on. The blessing with FURIA was that they killed two birds with one stone. They were also ambitious and aggressive in terms of growing their brand in North America, because they have headquarters in Florida."

Geographical positioning played a key role in accepting BIG into the ranks too, Inglot shared, as the organization's "unapologetically German" brand helps ESL Pro League lock down another key market in the western European country.

"We really wanted to solidify Germany. We obviously know it is in the heart of Europe, it is a massive market, and although we've had MOUZ and G2 and there's an argument that they kind of have somewhat of a foothold in Germany, we felt BIG is a very unapologetically German brand, and we felt that was a big opportunity to solidify that massive CS:GO market."

HEROIC, meanwhile, were praised by Inglot for having put forward an impressive presentation overall and a package that also included their positioning in Scandinavia and aim to grow the Norwegian market.

"Their focus under Joachim's leadership is much more on trying to develop and grow the market in Norway, which is a little bit less explored than Denmark or Sweden. We were also really impressed with Joachim and the leadership team in terms of the presentation they presented us, and there was a lot of professionalism and there were a lot of good people that they brought on or were going to bring on."

Heroic distance themselves from past scandals and former leadership

You've got to wonder why ESL Pro League would take on such a risky partner in the now-Norwegian organization, however, as with the addition of Heroic also came a lot of bad PR after they became embroiled in multiple scandals involving Nicolai "⁠HUNDEN⁠" Petersen.

Their former coach had accused three of Heroic's current players of having knowledge of his use of the coaching bug in 2020, for which he had gotten banned by ESIC for eight months, and the former Heroic leadership of drafting non-disclosure agreements that were supposed to prevent the players and coach from speaking out about their potential involvement in the use of the bug.

Despite ESIC finding no evidence of wrongdoing from the current HEROIC players or the organization, only applying a minor sanction to one of the former members in Nikolaj "⁠niko⁠" Kristensen, many in the community still feel that both the players and the organization got off too easily after it became clear that, at the very least, some of the players failed to report their knowledge of HUNDEN's use of the bug in the first of two occasions.

Joachim Haraldsen, the current CEO of Heroic whose company Omaken Sports acquired the organization earlier this year from the previous leader Erik Askered, expressed the belief that Heroic had gotten vindicated by ESIC's findings and was quick to point out that none of Heroic's current management had been involved in the scandal.

"One thing I think is important to state here is that none of the people who work here in the management were in Heroic at the time these scandals happened, so it was very important for us to take some time and look at the situation that happened in the past as well, and be able to understand and take decisions if needed," Haraldsen stressed. "Integrity is super important for us, and if there was an integrity breach, or case, or anything, we would be ready to handle that."

Read more

ESIC apply minor sanction to niko in complicity of HUNDEN coaching bug abuse; clear Heroic quartet

Askered himself, who was in charge of Heroic when HUNDEN's infractions took place, has quietly parted ways with the organization following the end of the investigation, which Haraldsen played down in the interview, saying the former CEO and CGO's departure came as a result of a mutual agreement.

"When I went in and acquired Heroic, I offered him [Erik Askered] a freelance agreement to help with the transition of the assets we purchased, to get a good integration to the new company that was running Heroic. Eventually, we managed the transition phase, we were done with that, and then we ended up on mutual terms to end the relationship. Also, we are building up the center of gravity in Norway, so we want the employees here, so there are many strategy factors that came into the decision."

Heroic's delayed start and expectations to address the outcome of the ESIC investigation

In the announcement of Heroic's induction into the Louvre Agreement, it was stated that the organization would enter the partnership at a later date compared to the others, in the latter half of 2022, after a period that would allow them to "address the outcome of the investigation and implement their new strategies and standards."

When asked how the Commissioner's office and the existing member teams expected Heroic to do that, Alexander Inglot said:

"We had a lot of conversations with them about what their vision was for the brand and how they wanted Heroic 2.0 to be different from what had come before. I think that really went a long way to helping us and the members feel comfortable about what may have felt to some in the community as a bit of a risky step."

"Heroic were talking to us about how they were going to upgrade and develop their internal staffing structure. They talked to us about the standards Joachim mentioned, how they were going to hold themselves quite transparently and openly to high standards, to make sure that no matter what had happened in the past, that Heroic were going to stand for a standard that is right at the vanguard of integrity.

"We felt confident that this was an organization that we felt, going forward, it was someone we can work with and that they were going to proceed responsibly."

"When the moment came for us to decide if we're going to welcome Heroic in and how, we had a very positive dialogue and we agreed with Heroic that all of this was going to take time. There was going to be a period of recovery after the dust had settled, the dust needed to settle, everyone needed to get their heads straight, and Heroic wanted to roll out what they wanted to roll out," Inglot continued.

"We got all the assurances that we needed, we heard all the positive messages that we needed, and I think we'd got the time both of us need to make sure that when we do finally welcome them in, it's going to be as productive as possible from both sides."

Haraldsen also explained that there were other reasons why HEROIC needed more time, as with the acquisition of the brand came his company's biggest asset, the Counter-Strike team that has been consistently competing at the top and that the organization still needs to catch up to with larger support staff and performance team.

"Going from a team Omaken Sports with a PUBG team and a sim racing team, to suddenly having one of the biggest CS teams in the world and having several million eyeballs towards your team is a big transition," Haraldsen said.

"One of the most important things for the CS team is that we're trying to make our own standard within performance. We have a too-small performance team, we have a too-small commercial team and marketing team, these are all different areas that we are recruiting great people. And getting great people into the company obviously takes some time."

Missing out on CIS organizations amid the region's purple patch

The conversation finally turned to an important question that was on many people's minds when the three new organizations in the Louvre Agreement were announced: How come NAVI are still the only team from the CIS region included in the agreement, and where are Gambit or Virtus.pro?

When asked about why the new additions included no CIS organizations, Inglot recognized that the region is having its purple patch at the moment, also noting Spirit as a key name in the area, and shared that although there had been interest from the big names, some of it waned off as the talks progressed to the final phases, with the Commissioner initially speaking in vague terms about the biggest brands in the region before singling out one name in particular — Gambit.

"We reached out to all the names you and I have mentioned in this conversation, we reached out either proactively or they came in through the process organically," he said. "But really, through the process, some of them decided that they wanted to step out. I think it's fair to say that we didn't consciously eliminate any CIS region teams."

"Ultimately, I can't force Gambit to bid or to be in the process. We had hoped that they would be part of the conversation, and we had a few CIS teams who went a little bit further, some that didn't go a little bit further, but ultimately once we got to the final three, we didn't have any teams from the CIS region that we felt were really comparable to the three that we finally chose."

Closing the door with a 16th team is not an option, for now

With BIG, FURIA, and HEROIC chosen to join the list, the Louvre Agreement will soon feature 15 teams. The current version of the agreement allows for a maximum of 16 to be in partnership alongside ESL, which means there is still one more slot available.

The Commissioner told us that filling the final slot was a part of the conversation and that there is also the possibility of raising the ceiling entirely in the future. However, it was decided that neither would be an option for the time being for multiple reasons, the main one being that both sides are currently happy with the balance between partnered teams and open slots in the Pro League.

"We still have the mechanism, the ability in our Pro League agreement, that we can lift that ceiling, we can go higher than 16, but one of the things that makes Pro League such a great product is because it strikes a perfect balance between locking in a significant amount of teams and making sure that it's not a closed league. It's really a balance between ensuring that we get the best teams that we want in there on a regular basis while balancing that with the open system that enables people to come out of left field."

"When we decided that we wanted to protect that 16 as the ceiling, we felt that we didn't want to close the process. There are still organizations out there today that weren't part of the process or didn't go as deep in the process for whatever reason, and we didn't want to close the door on them. I would also argue that we haven't been able to do the full outreach program that we would have ideally liked to have done if there hadn't have been any COVID restrictions."

"Did we reach everyone that we think we could have? No, I don't think so. So I think that's why we recommended to the membership that we have 4-5 good teams in here, but let's not close that door yet."

Commissioner responds to criticism over further franchising the league

Inglot finally responded to the criticism from the community about making ESL Pro League even more franchised than before with the addition of three more teams who are guaranteed a slot, arguing that they have not given away free slots that teams would otherwise not deserve on competitive merit alone — a statement that is difficult to refute, as HEROIC, FURIA, and BIG have all maintained a spot around the top 20 for the vast majority of the past two years, and so have all the other names in the Louvre Agreement despite occasional lows.

At the moment, only two of the 15 organizations in question don't have a team inside the top 20 of the current HLTV.org ranking: Complexity and Evil Geniuses, both of whom are in the process of rebuilding their roster.

"I think there would be real concern if those 15 teams didn't feel like top brands. We know rankings go up and down, but all the 15 teams, my understanding is that they were all in the top 30, 13 of them were in the top 20, so they feel undoubtedly as the top teams in the CS:GO landscape. And in the last two years, none of the partnered teams have dropped down far without recovering. Some of them have dropped out, like fnatic, ENCE, but they've all come back, which I think is symptomatic of the type of organizations that we've partnered with and their ambition, and their ability to weather storms."

"The final piece I would underline is that BIG, FURIA, and Heroic have all played in every EPL season for the past two years on their own merits. So again, I think it's important to underline that none of these teams have special treatment, that we've added teams that would never have made it otherwise.

"Competitive pedigree is a critical piece of the puzzle."