As presented already with the official announcement of the ESL Extreme Masters 3, Europe’s biggest and most important gaming league will cross the Atlantic and open its doors for the American and Canadian players. After entering the Asian eSport market with ESL Asia in early 2007, Turtle Entertainment and the ESL make another big step and offer now leagues in the three most important continents. At the beginning ESL America provides cups and ladders in three different games: Counter-Strike, World of Warcraft and Bomberman Online.

With ESL Europe, ESL America and ESL Asia the ESL has a perfect basis for its tournaments headed by the Intel Extreme Masters. The third edition of the global challenge for Counter-Strike and World of Warcraft will be one of the be the biggest eSport shows and competitions in history featuring a total prize purse of 750,000USD and ten major events in the USA, Asia and Europe.

Because the United States did not have an ESL Pro Series or similar competition yet, the representatives of North America for the EM Finals at CeBIT 2009 will be determined by different cups and tournaments. All qualification details for Europe and the USA can be found in the official ESL news post.

While the USA entered today the global network of the ESL, the next countries are already in sight. ESNation, the company behind myMYM or the ESL Pro Series in Denmark, will become the partner for Sweden and Norway and will host a Pro Series and all the structure behind it from 2009 on.

ESL America
ESL Extreme Masters

Some minutes ago Turtle-Entertainment, the company behind the Electronic Sports League (ESL), announced four new categories and the nominees for the eSport Award 2008. With the award for "Best Call of Duty 4 Player, one of the new categories is related to Crossfire game CoD4. The eSports Award exists since 2004 and the winners will be determined by the eSports Award Academy and crowned during the grand eSports Award Ceremony with the "who is who" of eSports in attendance at Games Convention on August 11th.

Best Call of Duty 4 Player: The Nominees
Rob 'rob-wiz' Kennedy
Antonin 'OZWALD' Grenier
Nikolaj 'Mazarini' Lazarev
Robert 'smithz' Krivka
Daniel 'tidde' Asp

After the second season of the ESL Intel Extreme Masters ended with the Finals at CEBIT 2008 in Hanover, Germany, ESL announced today the third edition of the global challenge coming along with several changes.

Instead of Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft wil be the second game next to Counter-Strike. The world's most popular MMORPG, played by more than 10 million players, continues the reduction of Warcraft 3 at some ESL countries. Some weeks ago, ESL Germany announced already that WC3 will no longer be part of all Intel Friday Night Games followed by ESL Alpes which removed WC3 completly as ESL Pro Series game. After the Blizzard and Intel Warcraft Weekend in Hamburg and the Intel Extreme Masters at DreamHack the ESL hosts now the third big tournament for WoW.

The third season will start in August at Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig, Germany. It features a total prize money of $750 000 and will end once again at CEBIT 2009. ESL will host several events in Europe, America and for the first time at the Extreme Masters also in Asia. The American and European continental league seasons will culminate in continental finals. Individual country finals will be hosted in Peoples Republic of China and the Republic of South Korea. More information on the ESL Intel Extreme Masters will be announced quite soon.

ESL Intel Extreme Masters
ESL Newspost

While the Acer Challenge took place in Enschede, Germany concentrated on the much bigger und more important ESL Pro Series XII Finals in Cologne. Not far away from the Cologne Cathedral the ESL saw thousands of youg people visiting the location of the EXPO XXI. The whole German eSport scene including the teams mousesports, Team Alternate, mTw or SK Gaming travelled to Cologne and fought in six different disciplines for a prize money of 170 000 €. Some minutes ago the Grand Final of the Counter-Strike 1.6 tournament finished and this are the most important results and information of the last three days:

As announced some hours ago (newspost) , the ESL Major Series Groupstage is ready to start. On Tuesday evening we will see the first matches played in group A. Although one match was wildcarded already, we have found a compensation for the missing match. We are looking forward to four hot and enthralling matches. The first matches start at 21 CET and ETTV will of course be provided by GamesTV.org!

Start: 21 CET
ESL Matchlink: http://www.esl.eu/eu/et/ems/season2/groupstage/match/9863250/

Start: 21 CET
ESL Matchlink: http://www.esl.eu/eu/et/ems/season2/groupstage/match/9863252/
ETTV on GamesTV.org: http://www.gamestv.org/event/5455-overload-vs-invitium/

Start: 21 CET
ESL Matchlink: http://www.esl.eu/eu/et/ems/season2/groupstage/match/9863253/

One hour after group A has played nearly all matches of week 1, we already have one match of group B. Normally both teams planned to play this match tomorrow as the semi-final of the EMS Relegation, but with the start of the EMS Groupstage this match will also be the first match for both teams at the groupstage.

Start: 22 CET
ESL Matchlink: http://www.esl.eu/eu/et/ems/season2/groupstage/match/9863279/
ETTV on GamesTV.org: http://www.gamestv.org/event/5431-friends-in-force-green-vs-cortana/

* Due to the short time between announcement of the groupstage and the first matches on Tuesday evening, it is possible that more than one match will be wildcarded.

ESL Newspost
GamesTV.org for ETTV

With the end of all National and International Qualifiers we reached the last stage of the ESL Major Series Qualification. While most of the teams for the group stage have already been found, some teams get now the very last chance at the ESL Major Series Relegation. The EMS Relegation starts at this weekend and will be finished on Sunday next week. A total of 16 teams get their last chance to become part of the EMS Groupstage - three teams from each national qualifier and seven from the international one:

[flag=eu Europe 7 teams] overload gaming
Friends in Force
cortana
TAG.et
Zero Empathy
n1ce.it
muse gaming
[flag=de Germany 3 teams] Team reVeal
emagine
Rapid Eye Moves
[flag=pl Poland 3 teams] Idem at multiplegaming.de
dECLINE Thallium Gaming
ElitePlayers
[flag=cz Czech Republic 3 teams] Les Miserables
ULTIMATORS
ESVKA 2

12 of 16 slots for the EMS Groupstage have already been given away, the other 4 teams will be determined in the EMS Relegation. Each team needs to win the first two matches, otherwise they refused also this offer.

The EMS Groupstage will start directly after the Relegation has been finished, in the meanwhile the remaining matches at all qualifiers will be played to get an easier basis for the seedings.

[b>> Qualified teams so far:[/b]] FatGames
one4one
Incomplete
Vicious and Evil
Impact Gaming
Unkind
megaProGaming e-Sports e.V.
Lost Soldiers
Authentic-Gaming
invitium
Necroraisers
inteRaction

ESL Newspost
ESL Major Series Relegation

After the last matches of the three different qualification stages for the ESL ENC finished last week, the ESL presented today the groups of the € 55 000 tournament. The ESL European Nations Championship exists since 2004 and has become the most important nations competition in Europe. It features the games Counter-Strike, Warcraft 3, Counter-Strike: Source and FIFA 2008 and shows year for year, that representing and fighting for your home country can be rewarded with more than a solid prize money.

The Grand Final will be held once again at Games Convention 2008 (August 21st to 24th) in Leipzig, Germany. The drawing of this years European Nations Championship Main Round was shown some minutes ago live on ESL TV and this are the groups for all four games:

As announced some weeks ago, the German PC magazine GameStar added Crossfire game ET: Quake Wars to their list of competitions for GameStar Liga Season 12 which features a prize money of €30,000 for six games. ET: Quake Wars gets a so called "Supported League" with a prize money of 1175 € and will see a total of 16 ET:QW teams joining the group stage.

Some days ago, GameStar set their new homepage online and presented also the teams and biggest rule changes for the 12th Season which will start by Tuesday evening.

After the signups for Enemy Territory's ESL Major Series closed on Monday evening, we are happy to present you today all qualifiers, seedings and the schedule for Qualification Round #1. It's time to start the €1000 competition!

At the end 90 teams decided to give it a try and joined the ESL Major Series Qualifiers. Based on their countries of origin, all teams can be divided into three national and one international qualifier. Germany was once again the biggest country and will see 20 teams fighting in their own qualifier. The other two countries are neighbouring countries of Germany, namely Poland and the Czech Republic. All of them will get their own qualifier, while teams from all other countries will join the European Qualifier:

• Qualifier - Europe
• Qualifier - Germany
• Qualifier - Poland
• Qualifier - Czech Republic

Normally the signups for the Enemy Territory ESL Major Series should have been closed on Sunday night, but after many new teams joined the tournament in the last 48 hours we decided to extend the singups for another week. This means you still have the chance to signup for the €1,000 competition!

With 73 teams up to now the ESL Major Series will be one of the biggest and most important Enemy Territory tournaments in 2008. Additionally, the prize money of € 1,000 will be the highest one in an ET online competition for several months, that's why we could see many teams registering at ESL with the end of CDC some days ago. Due to the increasing interest in the last days, we decided to extend the signups for another week. The new deadline is now Monday, 17.03.08, 17:59 CET.

At the same time the ESL announced some more qualification details like the map pool, config or rules on lineup changes and the team's nationality. Everything can be found in the original ESL newspost and we really appeal all teams to take a look at it. Due to this change, the start of the ESL Major Series will be delayed for one week.

ESL Major Series Signup
ESL Newspost
ESL Getting started guide