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League/Tournament Brands:
- The Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association (CSPPA) announced that it has entered into a participation framework with the ESL Pro Tour and DreamHack.
- The framework was a collaborative effort between the association, ESL, and DreamHack to define tournament guidelines and parameters.
- The framework was 24 months in the making and was needed to address concerns such as playing conditions, practice facilities, and more.
The Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association (CSPPA) announced that it has entered into a participation framework for professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) players with the ESL Pro Tour and DreamHack.
In a release, the CSPPA said that it will help provide guidance to ESL and DreamHack with ongoing dialogue to help ensure “continued growth and professionalization” for competitive CS:GO, addressing the needs of all stakeholders including players, teams, and tournament organizers The framework will cover all competitions within the ESL Pro Tour and DreamHack competitions, according to the release.
CSPPA will work with ESL and DreamHack on a number of issues including the fairness of business revenues, defining players’ rights and obligations at events, as well as attempting to make the current ESL tournament conditions the standard. It will also work together on the ESL Pro Tour events calendar and define when the summer and winter player breaks occur. Future collaboration regarding standard player contracts, player intellectual property rights, and potential joint projects is planned.
The CSPPA will also elect representatives for the ESL Pro League Player Council, which will help “govern the league.”
ESL and DreamHack have committed to maintaining their current standard, which includes travel and accommodation for seven members per team, group stage tournament areas and private practice rooms in the player hotel, defined distances between the hotel and the playoffs venue, and more.
The framework agreement will be effective immediately, starting with the first CS:GO competition in 2020–IEM Katowice.
“It was ESL’s priority over the last 24 months to ensure that CS:GO pros regard our tournaments as best in class,” Senior Vice President Product at ESL, Ulrich Schulze said in the statement. “The natural extension of this effort is recognizing the CSPPA as a partner in improving the ESL Pro Tour. This partnership is a very important milestone for us, as well as a big step forward towards the future of the industry.”
Counter-Strike has seen its share of problems during tournaments over the last two years including poor accommodations, lack of practice facilities, and computer equipment that did not have the proper specifications. This framework sets the tournament standard of what the CSPPA , ESL, and DreamHack believe should take place at events.
