eSports organiser ESL UK has told us about its plans for next year, including changes to its CSGO Premiership – and its upcoming “world-class” studio.
Project manager Peter Mather told eSports News UK: “We’re going to be increasing the amount of seasons we have next year. This year we ran two seasons across the year, they were longer seasons to try and inform the audience as to who the teams were and get a really long narrative out there.
“Next year for Counter-Strike we will running three seasons instead of the two. There’s not going to be less prize money for sure, but I can’t say if it’s going to more yet. I’m definitely trying – we’ll see if we can stretch the purse strings. We’d love to raise it up and push teams more towards that independence we keep talking about. But we don’t want to rush things.
“Next year, there will be more seasons and more prize money for Counter-Strike, because there are three seasons. And we have some really cool events coming up.
“CS players in the UK will be super busy. We’re also looking at other titles, so we’ll see where that takes us.”
He added: “In CSGO specifically, you don’t really see many UK teams out there on an international scale, so we have to build the stage to validate it to the audience that these teams are serious teams taking part. We’re trying to raise up UK eSports to the same level as the rest of Europe, we’re trying to catch back up. And it’s happening – with the ESL UK Premiership it seems to be working.”
ESL UK is building a new studio which it says will be world-class and ready for 2016.
ESL UK MD James Dean explained: “It’s very exciting times. Our current studio came from our warehouse that we used to store events equipment in, so that’s changed a lot.
“Our move to the new studio is all about stepping up to a dedicated custom-made design. It really is now hitting what everyone is starting to come to expect from the UK. It’s world-class, there’s not too much we can share right now, but we’re very excited to launch it and will be ready by very early next year.”
Read our full interview with ESL UK (or watch the video) here
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
