ESL One Cologne 2020 to be played online with new format

Daniel Cleary
ESL One Cologne with esl logo

Tournament organizers ESL have announced that they will be hosting their highly anticipated 2020 ESL One Cologne CS:GO event online, following global travel restrictions.

ESL Cologne is an annual CS:GO competition that features top teams from around the world, often considered one of the biggest events of the year, outside of the Majors.

However, ESL announced, in a blog post, that they would be switching up the format for the tournament in 2020, following concerns around global travel leading up to the event.

ESL CSGO tournament
ESL One Cologne will be moving to an online format.

“After a thorough evaluation we’ve concluded that ESL One Cologne 2020 powered by Intel will transition to an Online Tournament.” the tournament organizer revealed, “The decision was made after extensive research and understanding of global travel regulations and individual national guidelines.”

They also revealed that they would be splitting the event into four separate regions, Europe, North America, Oceania, and Asia, allowing each of the teams to compete from home.

“The teams were determined based on a regionalized version of the original ESL One Cologne qualification rule set: via the ESL Pro Tour ranking, ESL Pro Tour Challenger events, and the ESL World Ranking.”

The $500,000 prize pool has also been proportionally split into each of the regions with Asia and Oceania, who are only fielding 4 teams each, fighting for a $20,000 prize compared to the $325,000 for Europe’s top 16.

ESL One Cologne which was originally expected to run from July 6-12, however, it is now scheduled to span from August 18-30 after moving to an online format.

Although the likes of Vitality, BIG, and Evil Geniuses have all been confirmed, there are still plenty of teams to be invited for each of these regional competitions, with more teams expected to receive an invite on July 20.

ESL is also playing host to the next CS:GO Major in Rio, which has been delayed until November following similar concerns regarding the ongoing health crisis.

Related Topics

About The Author

Daniel is former Dexerto weekend games writer, as an expert in various multiplayer games in numerous genres. His expertise also expanded into gaming content creators, and the rise of streaming and YouTube stars, as well as esports professionals.