ESL Pro League has announced a number of changes starting in 2023, among which includes increasing the group stage of the tournaments from 24 to 32 teams.
What’s changing?
· Format: From Round Robin to a format combining double-elimination groups with a last chance bracket
The goal of the format change is to move towards more meaningful matches earlier on within the tournament stages. The new format for the Group Stages will be a format combining double-elimination groups with a last chance bracket into a ‘Ro16 Single Elimination’ bracket for the Playoffs.
Previously with Round Robin, there were many matches which became meaningless, contributing very little to no impact on the development of the tournament.
· Teams: Group Stage increased from 24 to 32 teams
This change was done to accommodate a larger, more global representation of teams in the core of the tournament.
· EPL Conference: Moved online to advance 11 teams to the Group Stage
The EPL Conference for Season 17 didn’t take place as originally planned this year. Due to this, more feeding tournaments have completed and have generated a larger than anticipated amount of teams (23x) who have earned the right to compete for advancement to the EPL Group Stage. In order to best serve all these teams, the best course of action is to regionalize and run the EPL Conference online, offering all teams the opportunity to retain the ability to compete for advancement.
· Schedule: From six to five weeks
EPL S17 will now take place across: Feb 22 – Mar 26, one week less than previously announced.
· Streams: From A-B-C streams to only A-B streams
ESL will no longer be producing a C stream. The tournament will have a total of 26 play days, 10 of them requiring a B stream to broadcast parallel matches.
· Broadcast: New philosophy and production setup for the show
The production setup for the coming season will be structured in a way that addresses the shortcomings experienced during the previous season.
“We are excited for ESL Pro League in 2023 as we believe these adjustments will give the product a breath of fresh air. We’ll be looking to announce more details on the broadcast vision and the details of the format and scheduling for EPL Conference in the coming days,” noted the ESL statement.
