ESL Pro League Season 11 to be Played Online in Europe due to the Coronavirus Pandemic
Cover And Thumbnail Image Courtesy: ESL Gaming
The ESL Pro League Season 11 set to start next week on 16th March will be taking place online due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The group stage for the league which was scheduled to take place in a studio environment in Malta will now be played online due to “Malta closing its borders to multiple countries as a response to the increasing spread of COVID-19.”
Organizers of the tournament went on to state that, “In light of the current dynamics regarding COVID-19, we have made the decision to play the regular season of ESL Pro League Season 11 online, and are moving the finals from 1STBANK CENTER, Denver to a studio location without a live audience in Europe.”
With a repeat of IEM Katowice 2020 set to take place with ESL Pro League Season 11 - Finals, at least the teams would not be playing in an empty stadium. The organizers did a fantastic job at Katowice, receiving praises by the entire community for putting up a fantastic show for the online viewers, reflected in their solid viewership as well.
ESL supporting the decision made by the Government of Malta of instituting “a wide range of travel restrictions and quarantine regulations,” has hosted online dedicated servers for teams to play the matches from either their home, team houses, or boot camps within Europe.
“All the teams and CSPPA have been extremely supportive and teams are offering their facilities to the fellow players coming from other countries.”
The coronavirus has recently been declared a pandemic by WHO with the number of people infected by the virus crossing 126,000 at the moment, spread across more than 119 countries.
