Twitch and FACEIT are joining forces to create a professional eSports league for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It’s going to be called called the eSports Championship Series, or ECS, and it will have 20 professional teams. 10 of them are North American teams and 10 European teams.
The teams will be playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for a prize pool of $3.5 million. ESC will kick off today, April 6th, with a pre-show at 8:30pm PST. Their first game will start 30 minutes after the pre-show. The game will be streamed via Twitch.
Here’s what the Michele Attisani, the co-founder of FACEIT, had to say about this decision:
“Players and teams are the heart of the eSports community and deserve the opportunity to reap the rewards of their hard work and dedication to grow esports into a mainstream phenomenon.”
According to market research firm Newzoo, eSports drive 21.3% of Twitch viewership, and has total of 475.5 million hours of content. 27% of those hours belong to the shooter category, and 58% of those hours have been dedicated to MOBA.
In addition, FACEIT has more than 4 million active users, with over 6 million online game sessions monthly. Twitch, the leading game video platform has more than 100 million users watch and discuss about games with more than 1.7 million streamers. This ensured a large quantity of loyal fans for this new league.
Market research done by Newzoo about Twitch views in game categories
In conclusion, the ECS has an enormous potential fanbase, is enacting its own rules for players and games, and also has professional teams and financial supports from owners. It will run like most of the eSports leagues we’re currently familiar with, like LCS, SPL, and more.
