With season 2 of the ESEA League coming to its final weeks, details for an improved season 3 have been announced. It has beenn announced that there will be a $35,000 prize pool across Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike: Source, and Team Fortress 2. Counter-Strike 1.6 will again feature invite (twelve teams), main, and open divisions and Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2 will both have invite (eight teams) and open divisions.
Another exciting fact about the season 3 is that the CS 1.6 Invite playoffs will be held in a LAN tournament in either New York City, or Dallas, Texas.
Here are the benefits for playing in the ESEA League:
- Complete web match scheduling
- All matches played on our ESEA servers across eight locations
- Protection from our industry leading anti-cheat / config locking Client
- Helpful team of handpicked paid league Admins who are active in each community
- Complete box scores and stats for EVERY match (just as we have for pugs and scrims)
- HLTV and SourceTV demo downloads for every match within 5 minutes of matches finishing
- Automatic live HLTV and SourceTV for every match (unlimited number of spectators)
- Automatic live irc scorebots for every match
- Automatic POV demo recording
- You build your permanent league record
Key changes from Season 2 to Season 3:
- Increased prize pot from $20,000 to $35,000
- Lowered price of open from $8 to $5
- All open divisions now have two matches per week
- Added invite divisions for Source and TF2
- All matches now feature unlimited slot HLTVs & SourceTVs
- 1.6 Invite LAN Playoffs
Registration for Season 3 will open April 5th, while the season starts the first week of May. Registration fees for the open divisions are $5 per player, and invite divisions are $8 per player. All entry fees go to the prize pot.