ESL bans HLTV from offline events
6/4/2009 - 00:11
You might have noticed there was no HLTV from the IFNG last Friday, this was because ESL has decided to ban all HLTV from their offline events in the EPS.
The move has been taken by a struggling ESL that has massively reduced prizes this year. The rationalisation for the ban is that HLTV does not catch the atmosphere of the game. One could argue that leaving it up to the spectators would be the smarter choice, but ESL has chosen to go all in on Livestreaming. In the end it most likely a question of advertising dollars more than the spectator experience.
This means there will be no more IFNG's hosted by HLTV.org, we will still provide match pages so you guys can discuss the matches, check previous matches, lineups, and hopefully watch scorebot too.
Needless to say we are sad to see ESL take this direction, but there is nothing we can do about it.
Whether HLTV will be banned from other ESL events and online matches remains to be seen.
The move has been taken by a struggling ESL that has massively reduced prizes this year. The rationalisation for the ban is that HLTV does not catch the atmosphere of the game. One could argue that leaving it up to the spectators would be the smarter choice, but ESL has chosen to go all in on Livestreaming. In the end it most likely a question of advertising dollars more than the spectator experience.
This means there will be no more IFNG's hosted by HLTV.org, we will still provide match pages so you guys can discuss the matches, check previous matches, lineups, and hopefully watch scorebot too.
Needless to say we are sad to see ESL take this direction, but there is nothing we can do about it.
Whether HLTV will be banned from other ESL events and online matches remains to be seen.