Valve reportedly unhappy with the ESL and Facebook streaming deal
ESL Press ReleaseESL’s streaming deal for certain Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitions has been a point of contention ever since it was announced, and now Valve are reportedly unhappy, too.
[ad name=”article1″]
Fans of both esports games have continually voiced their issues with watching their respective titles on Facebook’s’ Live platform. With every stream, there have been plenty of problems – be it starting late, lagging or sound and quality issues.
According to esports journalist Rod ‘Slasher’ Breslau, Valve and ESL are disappointed with the poor viewership figures that Facebook streamed events have seen in the 12 months since the deal was made.
[ad name=”article2″]
SlasheR tweeted: “That marks the end of the final ESL CSGO or Dota stream on Facebook in 2018,” following the ESL Pro League S8 Finals on December 9.
“Really poor viewership all year and Facebook hasn’t proven it can do streaming, to the detriment to both esports. Valve not happy. ESL neither even with $. Correction: Deal runs through end of 2019.”
To highlight just how bad the viewership has been, SlasheR quoted statistics from two major CS events in 2019 – the ELEAGUE Boston Major Grand Finals in January and the ESL Pro League Finals in December:
Cloud9 wins the ELEAGUE Boston Major on home soil: CSGO breaks the Twitch record for most viewers on a single stream (1.1M+).
Astralis wins the ESL Grand Slam on home soil: 30,000 viewers on Facebook (without embed), a best for FB
Wouldn't be surprised to see the deal broken.
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) December 9, 2018
[ad name=”article3″]
According to Breslau, the deal for ESL One events is now over, meaning that Dota 2 fans may have seen the last of Facebook streams.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for CS:GO, where the ESL Pro League is due to remain on the much-maligned platform until the end of 2019.
The only hope for CS fans, it would seem, is for the deal to be broken entirely and for all parties to go their separate ways. While this would likely involve some sort of legal procedure, Slasher says he “wouldn’t be surprised” to see it happen.
