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Leagues and Governing Bodies

Creating The Model: ESL Standardizing Tournament Formats For Biggest Events

Esports tournament organizer ESL is standardizing its tournament format across its biggest event series in '18, making all ESL One, Intel Extreme Masters and ESL Pro League events six-day, 16-team competitions. As it stands today, every event is reconsidered based on different factors, involving anywhere from 8-16 teams, with wide variation on how many slots are determined by qualifying events versus invitations. In many cases, teams accept and then learn the details with only a few weeks’ notice. "We wanted to make sure we change it to set clear expectation for everyone in the ecosystem as to how many teams are going to be at a specific event, and then how many of those do we invite, and based on what criteria, and then how do the rest of the slots get determined,” said ESL VP/Pro Gaming Ulrich Schulze. The change also is designed to appeal to sponsors’ and advertisers’ planning needs, and is yet another step in the esports industry’s ongoing attempts to change its free-wheeling approach to something more aligned with corporate planning budgets and calendars. The expanded tournaments will be more costly, Schulze notes. “A significant six-figure increase,” Schulze said. "But we believe it’s something that we can more than make up for on the revenue side.” Schulze said ESL officials settled on the 16-team format as a way of ensuring the presence of the most marketable, successful teams while also giving qualifiers of local relevance a chance to compete. The changes affect at least 10 planned events on the calendar for '18. In each competition, the 16 teams will be divided into two groups for the first three days of double elimination group play, with the top winners there advancing to a six-team tournament in the second half. The second half will be played in major arenas where possible, though it will be difficult to secure a third day in some high-demand locations.

For more coverage of the business of esports, visit our partners, esportsobserver.com.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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