ESL Pro League Season 15 viewer's guide

Get up to date on the format, schedule, talent, and teams competing at the five-week event.

ESL Pro League Season 15 is set to kick off on Wednesday, March 9, starting off a lengthy competition that will be concluded on April 10. The 24-team tournament will take place on LAN in Germany, with four round-robin BO3 groups starting off the action.

The Machine - SPUNJ partnership is back

Each group will be played out across five days, Wednesday to Sunday, with a two-day break between them. Each play day will feature three BO3 matches played consecutively, barring the final day of each group, when all three matches will be played simultaneously.

The 12 best teams will reach the single-elimination playoffs, where teams that place second and third will kick things off in the initial round, and the best teams from each group will await in the quarter-finals.

Group schedule:

Group A: March 9-13
Group B: March 16-20
Group C: March 23-27
Group D: March 30-April 3
Playoffs: April 5-10

Daily schedule:

12:30 - Match 1
16:00 - Match 2
19:30 - Match 3

The world's nine best teams are in competition at Pro League, with OG being the only team missing from the top 10. ESL's decision to not allow "organizations with ties to the Russian government" to compete unless they are signed up under a neutral name put Virtus.pro and Gambit at risk from missing out, however.

While it has been confirmed that the Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali-led team will compete at Pro League under the name "Outsiders", the participation of Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov and co. at the event is still under a question mark.

Groups for the event are as follows:

Group A

Ninjas in Pyjamas

Entropiq

fnatic

MOUZ

G2

Looking For Org

Group B

FURIA

ENCE

FaZe

Vitality

Outsiders

Sprout

Group C

Movistar Riders

Players

Liquid

BIG

GODSENT

Party Astronauts

Group D

Natus Vincere

Heroic

Astralis

AGO

Complexity

Evil Geniuses

ESL has put out the team sheets for all of the competing organizations, which also include the substitutes that were signed up. Teams such as Ninjas in Pyjamas, FURIA, BIG, MOUZ and Astralis have used the opportunity to list players from their academy teams, while the likes of Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye and Niels Christian "⁠NaToSaphiX⁠" Sillassen appear on Heroic's lineup as substitutes.

Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov is listed as a substitute for Entropiq, while, alongside Valentin "⁠poizon⁠" Vasilev and Matias "⁠Banjo⁠" Kivistö, Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin is signed up as a backup player for fnatic — despite the rumors of a hefty offer from Ninjas in Pyjamas. Academy player Iulian "⁠regali⁠" Harjău is also on the team list for the Black & Orange.

HLTV.org have confirmed that, while Love "⁠phzy⁠" Smidebrant doesn't appear on Ninjas in Pyjamas's roster on ESL's website, he has in fact been signed up for the event.

Notable substitutes:

Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov (Entropiq)
Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye (Heroic)
Niels Christian "⁠NaToSaphiX⁠" Sillassen (Heroic)
Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin (fnatic)
Valentin "⁠poizon⁠" Vasilev (fnatic)

The event has a $823,000 prize pool of which $175,000 will be given to the winner, and an extra $5,000 will be awarded to teams for each group stage win. The prize pool distribution is as follows:

1. $175,000
2. $70,000
3-4. $35,000
5-8. $17,500
9-12. $12,000
13-16. $9,000
17-20. $7,500
21-24. $6,000

The on-air broadcast team for the first week of the event has also been revealed, with the reunion of Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill and Alex "⁠Machine⁠" Richardson headlining the list.

Find the whole week one talent list below:

Tres "⁠stunna⁠" Saranthus - Desk host
Pala "⁠Mantrousse⁠" Gilroy Sen - Desk host
Anastasija "Heccu" Tolmaceva - Sideline interviewer

Janko "⁠YNk⁠" Paunović - Analyst
Aleksandar "⁠kassad⁠" Trifunović - Analyst
Alex "⁠Mauisnake⁠" Ellenberg - Analyst
Allan "⁠Allan⁠" Hender - Analyst

Alex "⁠Machine⁠" Richardson - Caster
Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill - Caster
Harry "⁠JustHarry⁠" Russell - Caster
Hugo "⁠Hugo⁠" Byron - Caster