ESL have put themselves in a bit of a predicament with a number of CS:GO teams unhappy with the announcement that ESL Pro League Season 11 will feature fewer participants.
What is the issue with ESL and the new Pro League rules
The German company imposed significant changes to the format for ESL Pro League’s next season, including reducing the number of teams participating to 24, from the previous number of 48. This didn’t bode well with the teams who were supposed to have a slot in Season 11 and the organizers deemed it necessary to turn to Twitter and offer those affected an official apology.
In a series of tweets, ESL’s Senior Vice-President of Product Ulrich Schulze confessed that communication was mishandled on ESL’s part and confirmed that the teams left out of Season 11 found out about it when the official statement surfaced to the public.
While there can be no resolution to the problem itself and indeed teams that are not on the 24-name list will not participate in Season 11, ESL ensured that every team will get a chance to get back in the fold for Season 12 through the Mountain Dew League and an additional method that will look to “ensure regional representation”.
Schulze added that ESL would reach out to affected teams and try to address the issue, but as far as actually playing, those left out will have to settle for the MDL if they still wish to compete in the ESL league.
Possible repercussions to follow ESL’s miscommunication
The situation was always going to be a bit sticky. While the new format is nice in theory and should bring more intense action to the viewer, telling a bunch of teams that they’ve lost their privileges was never going to end well.
Yet, ESL did not do themselves any favors by keeping the information to themselves until the very last moment and could have possibly stained the relationships with more than a few organizations, which at least from the outside appears wildly unnecessary.
I doubt this misdeed will have too much of a negative effect on the company’s reputation, but it was indeed avoidable. That’s why I can’t stop but wonder what mister Schulze and the rest of ESL were thinking.
