ESL to host fewer best-of-five finals

ESL's Senior Product Manager revealed the tournament organizer's approach to grand finals changed heading into 2023.

On Sunday Vitality overcame HEROIC 2-0 to crown themselves as champions of IEM Rio. That final was a best-of-three, not a best-of-five as many previous IEM tournaments have been, like Dallas last year.

In the wake of the IEM Rio grand final, ESL's Senior Product Manager weighed in to inform the community that the tournament organizer had changed their approach to finals heading into 2023.

Michael "Cynil" Parsons stated that "EPT Masters tournaments such as IEM Rio, IEM Dallas and IEM Fall will be Bo3." He went on to add "ESL Pro Tour Championship events such as IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne will remain Bo5 alongside EPT Masters tournament ESL Pro League."

There has been plenty of discussion in the community for years around the merits of best-of-five grand finals, with critics highlighting the immense length of time they take to complete, and proponents suggesting it tests a team’s endurance and their map pool.

HLTV's own Josip "brcho" Brtan trawled through the numbers for some of the most recent elite Bo5 finals played, finding that the average broadcast length for a four-map Bo5 was five hours and 10 minutes, with that number jumping to seven hours and 14 minutes for a five-map series (admittedly with a small sample size considered).