Electronic Sports League (ESL), the organisers of Pro League have revealed that ESL Pro League Season 11 will be played online amid COVID-19 spread. Initially, the group stages were set to held at a studio in Malta and 1STBANK CENTER in Denver, USA was set to host the playoffs. Now, as per the press release, the group stages shall proceed online while the playoffs will be conducted at a studio in Europe without a live audience.
This comes in after the announcement of new travel restrictions imposed by government of Malta. The Denver finals’ abandonment is yet another setback for ESL after the IEM Katowice was hosted at Spodek arena without an audience. Earlier, Flashpoint also decided to not host grand-finale in Stockholm and the organisers will conduct the whole event at a studio in Los Angeles.
“This decision was largely motivated by the fact that Malta, the country of our originally planned studio location (for group stages), has instituted a wide range of travel restrictions and quarantine regulations as of today. These travel restrictions have made it impossible for a large amount of staff and the majority of teams to make their way to the planned season location,” the press release read.
“Because of this, instead of having over a hundred players, coaches, team members and ESL staff in a single location over multiple weeks, teams and players will be playing their matches either from home, team houses or in suitable boot camp locations in Europe and play out their matches on dedicated online servers.”
ESL thanked CSPPA and ensured the fans in Denver with a definite event in the future. The organisers further informed the ticket holders about the refund process and apologized due to the abandonment of the Denver finale. As of today, Coronavirus has over 124,000 cases and 4,585 confirmed deaths spread across 100 countries. World Health Organisation have declared the virus as a pandemic.
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