ESL to Host Multiple CS:GO LAN Events in 2022, IEM Rio Major Under Consideration

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 - 15^th - 27^th February 2022

• IEM Cologne 2022 - 5^th - 17^th July 2022

• ESL Pro League Season 15: Nov 23^rd - 28^th November 2021 & 9^th March - 10^th April 2022

• IEM US: May 31^st May - 5^th June 2022

• ESL Pro League Season 16: 14^th - 19^th June & 31^st August - 2^nd October 2022

• IEM Cologne: 5^th - 17^th July 2022

• ESL Pro League Season 17: 22^nd - 27^th November 2022

• IEM China: 6^th - 11^th 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 16^th 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.