ESL to Host Multiple CS:GO LAN Events in 2022, IEM Rio Major Under Consideration
The ESL Pro Tour for 2022 has been announced.
ESL has revealed the 2022 event calendar along with changes being introduced to the ESL Pro Tour (EPT). The organizers are planning on hosting multiple CS:GO LAN tournaments with a live audience, planning specific changes towards the ESL Pro League, some tournaments may be undergoing a name change, and the IEM Rio Major is being kept under consideration with Valve.
The 2022 season is going to be packed and exciting with ESL featuring more than 25 tournaments which are divided as follows, Two EPT Championships, Five EPT Masters, Four ESL Challenger (DreamHack Open) Tournaments, Four ESL Challenger League (ESEA Premier), and more than Ten ESL National Championships.
ESL plans on hosting multiple CS:GO events on LAN in 2022
ESL has planned on hosting all its EPT Masters and Championship events on LAN with a live audience in 2022. The events included in these are as follows,
IEM Katowice 2022 - 15th - 27th February 2022
IEM Cologne 2022 - 5th - 17th July 2022
ESL Pro League Season 15: Nov 23rd - 28th November 2021 & 9th March - 10th April 2022
IEM US: May 31st May - 5th June 2022
ESL Pro League Season 16: 14th - 19th June & 31st August - 2nd October 2022
IEM Cologne: 5th - 17th July 2022
ESL Pro League Season 17: 22nd - 27th November 2022
IEM China: 6th - 11th December 2022
Additionally a few ESL Challenger events are scheduled to take place in the USA, Spain, Australia, and Netherlands, and these shall also take place on LAN.
The ticket sales for both IEM Katowice 2022 and IEM Cologne 2022 will go on sale very soon, with limited seats available for the first ticket drop.
The ESL Pro League will now have something called ESL Conference to facilitate the qualification of CS:GO teams from all EPT Challenger level tournaments. More details on this will be provided on 16th September.
Tournaments like DreamHack Open and ESEA Premier will also be undergoing a change in their naming convention to ESL Challenger and ESL Challenger League respectively.
Finally, IEM Rio Major which was supposed to take place last year in 2020, but was cancelled due to the pandemic is currently under consideration with Valve for 2022.