ESL addresses scheduling clash between PGL Astana and IEM Dallas

20-3-2025 18:15

ESL's statement gives information regarding the consequences of attending both events, as well as how it will work for teams, "in the interest of openness and transparency."

ESL has issued a statement regarding teams participating in both PGL Astana and IEM Dallas, addressing the consequences that playing both events will have on teams as well as the consequences for IEM Dallas itself in terms of scheduling and seeding.

Eternal Fire, The MongolZ, G2, GamerLegion and FURIA are currently set to attend both events.

The statement said that ESL will allow attendance in both events despite the "tremendous risk" of forfeits, and that in similar situations in future ESL will "try and accommodate where possible and when possible, so that teams and players are not going to miss out on opportunities to compete."

Attendance at both events became a topic of discussion because PGL Astana is set to end the day before IEM Dallas begins. As such, teams that make top-four at PGL Astana will only be able to make it to Dallas (according to ESL's statement) by 12:45 on May 19, meaning they will miss media obligations and risk forfeits in case of travel issues.

ESL allows participation in both events

ESL has stated that they initially told teams planning to participate in both events that it would not be possible to do so, but that after evaluating travel plans presented by the teams involved, they would allow participation in both events.

HLTV contacted ESL to enquire as to whether teams may have declined invites for either tournament based on ESL's initial stance. ESL responded saying that "teams may have taken the initial information and made decisions in relation to participating in IEM Dallas or not."

Consequences for teams and IEM Dallas

The statement goes on to say that teams will be fined $4,000 and deducted 5% of their prize winnings in accordance with ESL's rulebook should they miss their media obligations, which they will if they reach top-four of PGL Astana.

ESL also emphasised their rules regarding forfeits. The first map of a match will be forfeited 15 minutes after the assigned start time, and the entire match will be forfeited 30 minutes after the assigned start time.

Also addressed is the issue of scheduling and seeding for IEM Dallas. Seeding will be done on May 6, but scheduling will not be determined until May 16, after the quarter-finals of PGL Astana have been played. Teams that make it to top-four in Astana will be given either the second-last or last match slot on day one of IEM Dallas.

ESL encourages cooperation among tournament organizers

The issue has further ramifications as it sets a precedent for how tournament organizers will handle such schedule clashes in future, which is particularly relevant considering the packed calendar over the next couple of years.

Whilst ESL emphasised that "this situation is not ideal," the statement did strike a conciliatory tone. The organizer said they were allowing teams to attend both "in the spirit of supporting the transition to an open ecosystem," and encouraged other tier-one organizers to reach out when such situations are likely to arise.

2025-03-20 18:17

2 replies

esl encourages cooperation lmfao, same org that kicked out pgl out of krakow for their event

2025-03-20 22:09

1 reply

of course they do. they cooperated with PGL to kick out all other orgs out of the calendar for few years before valve stepped in

2025-03-21 13:08

It is no secret that ESL and Blast are trying to strangle PGL. This will continue until PGL toes the ESL line.

179

15 replies

i swear every decision by these guys lately have been making them look worse and worse

2025-03-20 18:26

They've always had the goal of monopolizing pro CS. Its always been their aim. Now that their investors/owners aren't getting the progress they wanted, the proverbial fire is being lit under their proverbial ass. They're getting more aggressive. Not to mention the backdoor deals the top teams have with each other/ESL in substitution of the outlawed Louvre agreement that they have. Valve needs to tighten their grip on ESL, but I doubt they will. This is the most involved they've ever been with the circuit and even that isn't enough to deter ESL.

2025-03-20 18:31

esL

2025-03-20 18:27

ESL needs to be punished by valve for how they are conducting business. Wasn't long ago we had a flourishing ecosystem of ESL, Eleague, dreamhack, PGL, and a bunch of other smaller TOs that were all able to have events throughout the year with minimal scheduling conflicts. Now ESL is acting like having more than one or two TOs organizing events creates far too many scheduling conflicts. It's ridiculous and frankly ESL is showing they are a scummy TO that doesn't care about the game at all just how much money they can make by hosting events. (the talent employed by them are not necessarily a part of it or a problem at all I'd like to also put that out there. The one good thing they do is hire some really good talent.)

2025-03-20 18:32

8 replies

Exactly. Its literally up to Valve to stop these kinds of things. But Valve has always been hands off. Even with their increased involvement during CS2, its not enough intervention to prevent ESL from destroying the ecosystem.

2025-03-20 18:35

I don't think it is a coincidence that ESL haven't hosted a major since Rio, that is probably Valve's attempt of "soft punishing" ESL

2025-03-20 18:40

4 replies

valve can just press the nuke button if they want to. no more valve ranking points from esl tourneys. this will make teams play tournaments elsewhere.

2025-03-20 18:50

3 replies

valve in these days is just caprice. Usually absent when we need it and fumble the stuffs that are fine

2025-03-20 19:22

They absolutely could, but Valve are as hands off as they can afford to be. They don't want to police everything all the time, usually they let things play out and then only react if things go really bad

2025-03-20 22:04

Technically they could just take the license away, and ESL couldn't host any cs events. Similar what Riot did in their ecosystem.

2025-03-21 14:03

add starladder, flashpoint, summit, betway academy to the list as well

2025-03-20 20:16

exactly. And before pro league went on LAN they had full region based regular seasons of 20+ games per team with like 16 teams in each region's pro league. So that's like 160 games per pro league per region that teams had to play over a few months, while attending events. Like the schedule in 2018 and earlier was so packed it was insane and I don't recall almost any big issues of scheduling conflicts. ESL just wants to be the only org putting on events and it's sad how far the ecosystem has fallen to basically just being blast/esl/majors and then tier 2 events. Wish it could go back to the way it was pre LAN pro league to be honest

2025-03-21 05:12

some of you are so incredibly dumb. ESL announced their tournaments BEFORE PGL announced they'd be doing more than just majors. And yet ESL is allowing teams participate in both. But "They're trying to take PGL out of business". hltv.org/news/38459/esl-and-blast-announ.. hltv.org/news/38664/pgl-announces-11-tie..

2025-03-20 19:31

I'm sure that the lovely implication that the $100k-600k stipend these orgs get for being in agreement with ESL can be taken away if there is too much interfacing with PGL is a great way to "Allow teams to participate in both". Are we seriously under the illusion that the lack of attendance for Cluj Napoca by teams with open calendars like Liquid and Furia was ACTUALLY because they wanted to "rest"? Not to mention the revenue share agreements. Don't get me wrong, the orgs' management are absolutely also complicit in this (which would be fixed if players had the actual guts to make an ACTUAL union), but lets not pretend ESL is innocent by creating those guidelines out of manipulation of org management. Also are we ignoring ESL's leveraging of Saudi assets in Poland to cause PGL's Krakow venue to cancel on them because ESL want to move Katowice events to Krakow? What a benevolent company! The scheduling itself might not be malicious (keep in mind decisions are made BEFORE announcements are shared), but to make the claim that ESL are not trying to take PGL out of business is actually asinine. This has been THEIR ENTIRE HISTORY

2025-03-20 19:47

"I'm sure that the lovely implication that the $100k-600k stipend these orgs get for being in agreement with ESL can be taken away if there is too much interfacing with PGL is a great way to "Allow teams to participate in both". Are we seriously under the illusion that the lack of attendance for Cluj Napoca by teams with open calendars like Liquid and Furia was ACTUALLY because they wanted to "rest"?" No, it was because the big orgs didn't agree with PGL prize distribution, whose CEO took his time to tweet "We give the full prize to the teams, it's their problem how they distribute it". It was always an issue between PGL and the big orgs. ESL (Or Blast) had nothing to do and that's why once PGL announced the same model for the prizes, the big orgs lifted the ban. There's even an HLTV article that covers everything that transpired until that moment and why it happened. "Not to mention the revenue share agreements. Don't get me wrong, the orgs' management are absolutely also complicit in this (which would be fixed if players had the actual guts to make an ACTUAL union), but lets not pretend ESL is innocent by creating those guidelines out of manipulation of org management." You can't fault a business for searching ways to ensure customers that will provide bigger exposure and income. Paying teams incentives that motivates them to participate in ESL tournaments it's not wrong. But that's not the same as implying orgs have locked agreements to specifically not attend PGL, which is already proved false by how things turned out. "Also are we ignoring ESL's leveraging of Saudi assets in Poland to cause PGL's Krakow venue to cancel on them because ESL want to move Katowice events to Krakow? What a benevolent company!" Do we take rumors as facts? First, let's wait until things are official. Then let's see if they're even related. As of now, that venue could be holding something that's not even esport related and/or had a deal prior to anything PGL negotiated... The Cluj tournament was supposed to be played in Argentina. And they had a tournament scheduled in Barcelona that was also canned for X reasons... "The scheduling itself might not be malicious (keep in mind decisions are made BEFORE announcements are shared), but to make the claim that ESL are not trying to take PGL out of business is actually asinine. This has been THEIR ENTIRE HISTORY" This parraf doesn't make any sense. What does "decisions made before" have anything to do with what you implied? ESL announced their tournament before, they had no idea PGL would host a tournament that would end 1 day before theirs. If they really were out there trying to fuck with PGL because they have mysterious agreements, they would have enforced it or actually fucked teams by not accommodating the schedule. If roles were reversed and ESL announced their dates after PGL, all of you in that narrative would be like "Oh they didn't change dates to fuck them". I know better and shit happens, but PGL were the ones to be aware of this conflict and they proceeded instead of trying to see if they could change the date. As for the latter, that's why I stated that some of you are so dumb. You've created a narrative based on voices in your head (Or the dislike of ESL/Saudi) because there's no basis in it. It's the first year PGL is doing tournaments outside the major ffs.

2025-03-20 20:20

"ESL encourage cooperation amongst tournament organizers" Yeah, they want to push a monopoly

2025-03-20 18:19

14 replies

- took away arena in Kraków from PGL - fine players for participating in PGL event - let’s cooperate 🥰

13 replies

The Krakow event has something to do with ESL? Holy fck

2025-03-20 19:46

12 replies

>PGL reserves event for future PGL Krakow with their venue >venue confirms their reservation >ESL makes plans to transition Katowice to Krakow due to Krakow investment ecosystem and connections >Venue cancels PGL's reservation then says publically "They never had one" with both ESL and PGLs events being on dates VERY close together (Somewhere around Jan 18-25).

2025-03-20 20:00

11 replies

That's fucked up. I saw PGL's post about the Krakow event then they cancelled later that day. Had no fucking idea it had something to do with ESL. That is messed up

2025-03-20 20:04

10 replies

Saudi Arabia has recently made LOTS of business deals and investments into Poland, Krakow specifically. ESL now has many powerful connections into that city. Its fucked.

2025-03-20 20:05

What xD.

2025-03-20 22:52

7 replies

ESL is owned by the Saudi Arabian government. So any connections the state has, it has.

2025-03-21 02:59

6 replies

No, I'm talking about Kraków part xd.

2025-03-21 14:40

5 replies

Krakow is quickly becoming a high-potential city actually. Its been getting a lot of project work from foreign investment firms, especially Saudi and China. Since its an academic center, it has a great base of high-skill workers. So a lot of companies are getting their foot in.

2025-03-21 14:48

Man, meds. I'm in Kraków every other month, and what you spit is just a bunch of bullshit. Academic center? For who? African immigrants? Our "best" universities rank between 500th and 800th place every single year. And most people on them are applying for some crap for mentally ill, like gender studies or psychology.

2025-03-21 15:05

The city has 120,000 students brother. I don't really care about your personal experience when it is incontrovertible fact these companies are doing this. Its literally in their reports and publications. So your personal view on it doesn't amount to squat. When you go back, take a look around and realize why there's so many international company offices and job listings offered in the city. Its why apartment and housing prices have skyrocketed in the city even before the pandemic and 2% mortgage initiative. Because of all the foreigners (not african and ukrainian immigrants) and job opportunities popping up in the city.

2025-03-21 15:15

Murican specialist about Polish affairs 😂 And maybe we had polish concentration camps on top of that? Man just stop spewing your bullshit, it has no correlation with facts.

2025-03-21 15:17

The Polish government and economic think tanks have a very different opinion than you. Heres what we'll do: I'll continue to live in reality where everything I say is backed with actual evidence, you continue to live in whatever schizoworld you've crafted. If you want a Polish source, find the Polska Agenjca Inwestycji's report from 2024 and the EIB. "Representatives from 72 Saudi firms are part of a group visiting Poland and Slovakia in a bid to increase trade with the European countries." "Saudi Arabia and Poland have established a joint business council for the 2024-2028 term to boost trade and investment" You must really hate Krakow to have this level of delusion. Have a wonderful day.

2025-03-21 15:35

This is just community theory btw, don't trust it untill it will be confirmed IEM comes from Katowice to Kraków

2025-03-20 20:18

So now ESL will encourage TO to work together after trying to make it impossible for PGL to operate in CS scene, how thoughtful of them.

PGL>esl

2025-03-20 18:23

interesting

I think valve should stop all majors to blast and ESL and potentially even take away VRS points from ESL events. ESL and Blast are openly conspiring with eachother and even some orgs to screw over smaller TOs. It is incredibly harmful to the scene and game as a whole, and ESL wants to create a world where they are the premier TO and get to do whatever they want, whenever they want regardless of what valve or other TOs say. If ESL isn't put in their place we will see the end of all events that aren't ESL affiliated at the top tier of pro CS.

2025-03-20 18:25

Ah yes, totally transparent statement from ESL where they only wish for the best of the ecosystem. Regards

HATE PGL, but come on esl/blast, you guys are greedy fucks.

2025-03-20 18:28

Don't try to act like the good guys ESL :)

2025-03-20 18:29

If their next tournaments they host would be like IEM Katowice then they better leave the scene ... mediocre TO and i can say the same about Blast , i've seen more tehnical time out and issues in first 2 days than entire PGL Cluj ...

2025-03-20 18:33

How tf scene is like this nowadays.

2025-03-20 18:34

Encouraging working together while actively punishing people working with other people. No PR team in the world could make this kind of selfish bureaucracy sound good.

They still big mad that Tier 2 Cluj was a better received and conducted event than theirs.... lol.

2025-03-20 18:37

the thing is their Dallas event would be so expensive for them and they would spend at least 7-8 times more than PGL would spend with Astana event and they are scared PGL Astana would be better than ESL Dallas but considering what we saw so far this season is very likely to happen this ....

2025-03-20 18:41

But eggs are cheaper here now, Surely the event costs are way down too. US has shit tons of CS2 fans broski the stadium is getting packed no matter who is playing. People will show up just to chant F U Apex again.

2025-03-20 18:43

dont actually understand the backlash against esl this time around

2025-03-20 18:51

16 replies

Same ESL literally agreed for teams to participate in other events and they even helped them by adapting event shedule under those teams And fine for missing media day is just rule and every team would recieve it for missing media day, no matter the reason

2025-03-20 18:58

I largely agree and really see no reason for teams to ask ESL or PGL to change their schedule to accommodate them playing in both events. However, ESL have lost a lot of goodwill in the scene recently, so it makes sense to not take their statement completely at face value.

2025-03-20 19:18

tbf the point of the packed schedule is to make teams choose. it's messed up that ESL has locked teams in with their revenue share program and limited number of skips. but if every team wants to go to every tournament we will just watch the same matches over and over again - and with limited pracc time, likely the same results over and over again. that's hella boring.

2025-03-20 22:38

I agree but the issue has become that the only time that is happening is PGL events. Teams aren’t skipping ESL events to play PGL ones. They are only skipping PGL ones.

2025-03-21 10:34

it's not the most usual and it is a problem, I agree. but Faze, Navi and Spirit have (or will) skip a ESL event to play a PGL tournament.

2025-03-21 13:21

I agree, except we are seeing the 3 big eastern European teams (Spirit, NAVI, Virtus.pro) all skip Dallas to play at Astana instead. I'm hopeful that it is a sign of better things to come for PGL.

2025-03-21 13:49

Yes, I agree with you, especially on the fact that I think teams are supposed to be skipping some events. However, I think the long term consequences of the new system haven't been seen yet. It takes at least a month for matches to begin effecting who gets invited to events. Which essentially means the churn of new teams rising up the ranking is very slow. If teams try to play every single event that makes it even worse for the teams sitting right on the edge of getting invites.

I think this initial shock was going to happen because it was too much change at once and no one really understood all implications from the get go. the invites for top tournaments so far have also only been impacted by like two tier 1 events (I think only Astana has used the march rankings, which would include Cluj), which is why it looks much worse at the moment. with time I do believe we'll see enough changes to improve it somewhat, though I doubt we ever see Valve's full vision.

2025-03-21 17:16

My being impatient to see how things develop also doesn't help things...

2025-03-21 17:22

Because some people in this forum are incredibly dumb and lack critical thinking. They believed ESL and Blast were the ones preventing teams from playing cluj when it was always a problem between PGL and the big Orgs over how prize pool was distributed. So by default everything will be PGL > ESL/Blast when in this case PGL is the one that causes the conflict as I stated in #30

2025-03-20 19:41

meds

2025-03-20 22:16

hltv.org/news/41088/strike-2-the-big-org.. "meds" = 12 years old.

2025-03-20 22:35

2025-03-21 08:45

I don't think they were truly preventing teams from playing PGL's events under the new rules, but it's true that they are actively discouraging it with their opt-in agreement. PGL not splitting the prize pool or offering an incentives program wasn't an issue with ESL or BLAST as you say, but it shows that PGL had no interest in colluding with the top orgs behind the scenes. That is what most of the scene latched onto when rumors about secret agreements with ESL started to circulate.

2025-03-21 17:27

opt-in is business. No one is preventing PGL from doing the same. Making your events more attractive to participate in is fair game. It's like claiming "a donut chain doing 2x1 deals is discouraging costumers from buying in other donuts business". And how did ESL and Blast collude "behind the scenes" when their incentives are all public information and Valve has rules against undisclosure deals? The main problem is some people (a loud minority tbf because most people just care about watching tournaments) have been on a crusade against ESL since Saudi Arabia bought it (And it's mainly over hating arabs and not real concerns about the state morality). So people have been trying to find ways to blame them over PGL issues. Issues that were caused by PGLs when they decided to go on an EGO war against the orgs: x.com/ssilviu/status/1884959972250853881 But PGL backtracking tells me they're aware they have to be on the same page as everybody to ensure they all make a profit out of it. Same as Fissure (BB Datcha) and likely Starladder. ESL has an advantage because everyone wants to play Kato/Cologne and that adds to "seeking" the intel grand slam. But I think the scene is big enough to make everyone eat at let the best organizer win.

2025-03-21 18:28

Yes, the opt-in agreement is business and for the most part things seem to be working themselves out. Valve have taken a stance against exclusive agreements and conflicts of interest, but everything else seems to be fine with them. If ESL or BLAST colluded with orgs behind the scenes against PGL, we haven't seen any actual proof yet. I personally think PGL only changed the prize pool distribution after it became clear that Valve were going to allow performance based incentives to be counted towards the "prize money earned" metric of the VRS. At that point there was no point in holding out against the orgs wishes. Either way though, it is not proof of anything other than a difference in vision for tier 1 CS from the TOs.

2025-03-21 19:16

keep fighting PGL, keep fighting!

2025-03-20 18:56

"Well now we can't have the teams boycott over appearance fees, so next we can just schedule over their events" - Ralf Reichert, probably

2025-03-20 19:33

At ESL's place I would just not allow teams to make double attendence and that's it.

2025-03-20 22:54

Why if teams after the tournament is over fly to Dallas they make it in time for the event. Then they are forbidding teams for entering other tournaments.

2025-03-21 14:20

They have to extend invites using Valve's system and they invited teams to their event a month before PGL did. Which means these teams had already accepted the Dallas invite before trying to attend Astana as well.

2025-03-21 17:30