StarCraft II’s ESL Pro Tour shuts down after five years

ESL FACEIT Group has announced the discontinuation of the ESL Pro Tour, its full-scale Starcraft II (SC2) circuit, for 2025 and beyond.

In a press release, the esports tournament organiser cited financial reasons for the decision, explaining that it had become increasingly difficult to maintain a SC2 esports ecosystem of this scale.

The ESL Pro Tour (EPT) was introduced in 2020 to create a ‘long-term sustainable competitive ecosystem for SC2.’ The year-long circuit featured online and LAN events with live broadcasts and regional competitions leading to an annual world championship.

The highlights of EPT’s inaugural season were the SC2 IEM Katowice events in 2020 and 2021. According to esports data platform Esports Charts, the two tournaments recorded 71,794 and 87,479 peak viewers, respectively.

Throughout five years, the SC2 circuit held over 48,000 matches with more than $6m (~£4.8m) in total prize money. The last major tournament of the ESL Pro Tour was last year’s Esports World Cup (EWC), which peaked at 60,884 viewers.

This year, SC2 will once again join the EWC, a multi-title esports festival organised by the Saudi Arabian government-backed EWC Foundation and the ESL FACEIT Group.

At its inception, the ESL Pro Tour was supported by key ecosystem stakeholders, which enabled the initial scale of the circuit. According to ESL, however, securing long-term funding commitments for the EPT became more challenging.

In 2023, the circuit already experienced the impact of decreased funding with a reduction of annual events and prize pools. While ESL has tried to maintain the EPT for as long as possible, the company has decided against its continuation on an even smaller scale.

“We have high standards for the quality of ESL Pro Tour ecosystems, and we’ve delivered on that premier vision for five years,” stated ESL in the press release. “However, we no longer see a sustainable path forward that maintains the quality and scale of competition fans associate with ESL Pro Tour, and as such, made the decision to sunset ESL Pro Tour for StarCraft II.”

ESL also thanked the SC2 community and everyone who contributed to the EPT, commemorating the past five years with a farewell video.

Oleksii ‘Alex007’ Trushliakov, Senior Product Manager at ESL, shared: “This announcement is very difficult and very personal to me. I have been with StarCraft II esports since day 1, […] and I had the incredible honour of shaping the pinnacle of esports StarCraft over the past few years, working with the most passionate and talented team I have ever met.

“None of this would be possible without you – every StarCraft fan who is reading this. […] Thank you for being with us – and let’s carry on with our passion for the game we all love.”