PEA suspends CS:GO league following players’ decision to choose EPL
The Professional eSports Association has announced that it will suspend plans to operate a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league. The decision was made via a majority vote by its member teams Team SoloMid, Cloud9, Counter Logic Gaming, Team Liquid, NRG, Immortals, and Complexity.
“It has become clear to the PEA organizations that there isn’t sufficient financial support in the ecosystem, either from broadcast/streaming partners, sponsors or others, to profitably operate a third prominent online league, due to the oversaturation of the marketplace and the recent upward spiral in operating costs,” PEA said in a statement.
“Though the agreements which the players negotiated and signed with the organizations give the organizations the right to decide where players compete (as with all team sports contracts), the PEA organizations decided to do the PEA CS:GO league only if a majority of the players said they wanted to play in PEA rather than EPL.”
Given that this is a suspension, it is still possible that PEA will launch a CS:GO league later down the track. The organization previously expressed interest in the possibility of investing in other games, as noted in an open letter posted by Noah Whinston, a member of the PEA Player Relations Committee and CEO of Immortals.
“If the only option for the PEA is to lose money by functioning as yet another year-round CSGO league, we’ll instead devote the PEA league’s resources to other game titles where over-saturation is less of a problem,” it read.
The decision potentially marks the end of a saga which first began in December 2016, when CS:GO players from teams Cloud9, Team SoloMid, Counter Logic Gaming, Immortals, and Team Liquid published a letter protesting the decision for them compete in the PEA league and not the ESL Pro League. The letter was written by Scott “SirScoots” Smith, who had been chosen by the participating teams’ players as their representative.
Whinston’s response addressed several concerns highlighted by the players and offered them the choice between competing in PEA’s league or EPL, but not both.
Yesterday it was announced that the players had chosen to compete in EPL, which was deemed to be more rewarding for teams not just financially, but was also “more open, balanced.”
Need to catch up with the details of this saga? Check out our CS:GO hub for more.
