Elisa to launch affiliate CSGO tournament

Nordic esports tournament organiser Elisa Esports have announced that they have partnered with esports company ESL Gaming to launch an official affiliate tournament for the ESL Pro Tour. 

The tournament will be known as the Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 and will be the inaugural ESL Pro Tour Affiliate event. The CS:GO tournament will have a prize money of  $200,000 and also a spot in the play-in stage for IEM Katowice 2023. Elisa Invitation, which is also organised by Elisa Esports, will have their four best-placed teams along with eight invited teams participate in the Elisa Masters Espoo. Elisa also announced that the first invited team for the tournament will be ENCE.

Set to be held in November 2022, the tournament will be played in Espoo, Finald. The finals will be held in front of a live-audience at the Espoo Metro Arena. The tournament will have two groups of six, competing in the round-robin stage from which six will advance to the playoffs. Two semi-final spots will be reserved for the group winners while the second and third placed teams from the group will battle it out in the quarter-finals. 

Mika Lepistö, Elisa’s Director of New Business Development & Partnerships, stated,

“We’ve actively organised esports tournaments since 2019 and this is thus far the greatest step in our esports endeavours. As a Finnish operator, we want to give Finnish players a path to international world-class tournaments.”

Shaun Clark, ESL Gaming’s Director of Product Management, added,

“We are thrilled to be inviting the winner of the Elisa Tournament Series into the ESL Pro Tour through this affiliate program. This partnership is a great starting point for this new initiative as we look to expand the global touchpoints of the EPT.

‘Our EPT Championships, IEM Katowice & IEM Cologne, are designed to have top teams represented from all corners of the globe. With this addition, we continue to add to what makes these tournaments global spectacles within the CS:GO competitive calendar.”