MTG unveils plan for major new esports initiative

Modern Times Group (MTG) has unveiled plans for a major new esports tour, the ESL Pro Tour, as a joint initiative from ESL and DreamHack.

MTG is pitching the event as the world’s largest Counter-strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) circuit, which willlink over twenty CS:GO tournaments and leagues on five continents and feature an aggregate prize pool of over US$5 million for 2020.

MTG holds an 82$% in esports specialist ESL and owns 100% of Swedish gaming lifestyle festival DreamHack.

The new tour has been announced ahead of ESL One in New York, during which details will be presented on September 28.

ESL operates branded international leagues and tournaments such as ESL One, Intel Extreme Masters, ESL Pro League and other top tier stadium-size tournaments, as well as ESL National Championships.

“While esports is attracting millions and millions of viewers and fans worldwide, the monetisation of media rights has been lagging behind in part due to a lack of viable media products. With the forming of ESL Pro Tour, we are taking an important step to change that; it’s global, recurring and announced well ahead of execution,” says MTG President and CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann.

“The new ESL Pro Tour is the first of its kind and is made possible by our ownership of the two global players in esports, ESL and DreamHack. We will continue to leverage our unique position to further professionalize the esports industry and our ambition is to announce more global activations similar to ESL Pro Tour.”