ESL renews contract with Facebook, but no longer exclusive streams

esports tournament organizer ESL will continue to work with Facebook in 2019, the company announced on Tuesday. However, this time the stream will not be as exclusive as before. Facebook will still stream Intel Extreme Masters, ESL One, and CS:GO ESL Pro League.

ESL first partnered with Facebook in January 2018, to stream ESL One and CS:GO Pro League. The IEM brand was later split from the contract and continued to be streamed on Twitch.

While this deal was financially beneficial to ESL, it made the esports fan community unhappy. This partnership caused controversy in the Dota 2 community, after many streamers such as Henrik “AdmiralBulldog” Ahnberg and Brian “BSJ” Canavan were subject to copyright infringement or ban on Twitch due to unofficial, live ESL One Genting streams. next to Facebook streams. Facebook stream channels also suffer from technical errors as well as problems caused to viewers.

The partnership ended in December 2018 making ESL and Valve both unhappy, while the future was uncertain.

Facebook’s Leo Olebe stated the following:

“Expanding ESL content to include all global esports tournaments is how we serve video game content on Facebook. Giving ESL fans a way to watch esports on multiple platforms. And that’s a big reason why all of the content in 2019 will be streamed on whatever platform ESL wants.”

However, with no more exclusivity, it’s hard for esports fans to keep following IEM and ESL One on Facebook. The first major CSGO Major event of 2019 will be streamed on Facebook and Twitch, starting February 13. From there, we’ll have cross-platform stats soon.