ESL returns to streaming on all platforms

The tournament organizer is no longer exclusively tied to streaming on Twitch.

ESL will stream on both Twitch and YouTube moving forward after no longer being tied to an exclusivity arrangement with the former, the tournament organizer has announced.

ESL and DreamHack signed a three-year deal with Twitch in April 2020, initially one that was non-exclusive for 2020 and then limited all official English language streams to Twitch for 2021 and 2022. ESL had previously signed exclusive streaming deals with Facebook and YouTube in past years, with both deals being met with criticism from the community.

Facebook's live streaming service was the subject of much ire at the time due to its poor viewership experience and lack of functionality. It was the only place to watch ESL Pro League and ESL One events, and backlash from the community ultimately led to ESL renegotiating the deal and dropping exclusivity the following year. YouTube was a much stronger competitor, but comfort with Twitch being the home of CS:GO for years still led to pushback from the community, albeit to a lesser degree.

Fan perception of streaming platforms other than Twitch has improved since those days, and tournaments outside of ESL's circuit — in particular, BLAST and PGL events — often stream simultaneously to YouTube and Twitch.

The expiry of ESL's deal now allows them to follow suit and stream their events across multiple platforms, including that of ESL Pro League and the ESL Pro Tour. Other parts of ESL's circuit, including ESL National Championships, can now also be streamed to multiple services.

The expiry of the deal comes just ahead of the start of IEM Katowice and its Play-In stage, which kicks off on Wednesday at 11:00 . The complete list of opening matches for the event can be found below:

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2023 Play-In
01/02/2023	ENCE 11:00 paiN	Match
01/02/2023	Cloud9 11:00 IHC	Match
01/02/2023	Spirit 12:15 Grayhound	Match
01/02/2023	MIBR 12:25 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match
01/02/2023	fnatic 13:30 Evil Geniuses	Match
01/02/2023	Sprout 13:55 OG	Match
01/02/2023	FURIA 14:45 Permitta	Match
01/02/2023	BIG 15:35 Complexity	Match