ESL announces tournament calendar for 2021
Ihor MatusESL talked about that. what championships can we expect this year. We will be able to watch both IEM Katowice 2021 with a prize pool of $ 1,000,000, as well as other tournaments that we did not know about before. For example, the tournament operator announced another major championship with a prize pool of $ 1,000,000 - ESL One Cologne 2021. As you might guess from the name, it will be held in Cologne. Both major tournaments will have 24 teams each. The Cologne Championships will be the only event before November that the organizers want to host in a LAN format. In addition, the ESL Pro League thirteenth season playoffs are scheduled to take place at ESL Studios.
ESL has partnered with CSPPA to develop a LAN fallback protocol. All championships will be held according to it. This protocol assumes that all players and staff will be tested for COVID-19 before the start of the tournament and during the tournament. Supervisory personnel will be located in the LAN tournament environment to monitor the safety and health of people staying there. Also, the organizers will be ready for the fact that suddenly someone from those present will have a positive test.
ESL wants to return tournaments to offline format in November.
List of all championships announced for 2021
- IEM Katowice 2021: February 16-28, $ 1,000,000, 24 teams, online format
- ESL Pro League Season 13: March 8 - April 11, $ 750,000, 24 teams, online format + studio playoffs
- DreamHack Masters Spring 2021: April 29 - May 9, $ 250,000, 16 teams, LAN format
- IEM Summer 2021 (instead of canceled IEM Melbourne 2021): June 3-13, $ 250,000, 16 teams, LAN format
- ESL One Cologne 2021: July 6-18, $ 1,000,000, 24 teams, LAN format
- ESL Pro League Season 14: September 8 - October 10. $ 750,000, 24 teams, LAN format
- IEM Fall 2021: October 14-24, $ 250,000, 16 teams, LAN format
- IEM Winter 2021: December 2-12, $ 250,000, 16 teams, LAN format