Furia, BIG, and Heroic join the ESL Pro League as permanent partners

The ESL Pro League will see three prominent organizations from around the world joining their ranks, as Furia, BIG, and Heroic have signed into ESL's “Louvre Agreement”.

As part of this new deal valued at US$20 million, these top esports teams will now be part of the Pro League, along with some of the biggest names in CS:GO esport, such as the Intel Grand Slam winners, Natus Vincere.

“When we started this process back in March, we were inundated with expressions of interest from over 40 ventures in CS:GO, esports more generally and even those currently not operating in the space,” confirmed Alex Inglot, Commissioner of the ESL Pro League.

According to ESL, bidders were asked to provide a range of organisational, legal and financial information. They were also asked for "financial bids" and "non-financial commitments".

This enabled the existing members, under the guidance of the Commissioner’s Office, to evaluate across a broad range of factors that would beget successful bid – such as performance legacy, geographical impact, strategic vision, investor group value and the bid amount.

This is because once each team starts, they will become equal stakeholders in the ESL Pro League and jointly shape the governance and share the revenues alongside ESL and the existing teams.

“The fact that they have put down such significant bids (with financial and non-financial components to each) shows they see real stable governance and growing value, which puts us on a par with other top-tier investment opportunities in esports or sports. We are in no doubt that each of these three teams will meaningfully contribute to our momentum, in the spirit of collaboration, global growth and strategic creativity,” added Inglot

As for the plans of each team, Furia will focus their staff, resources and energy on representing South America and supporting the North American region; as they plan to locate their roster in Florida while collaborating with other members across both continents.

Heroic’s high-quality application included a range of commitments from their new leadership team, including a focus on the high standards of new management and upholding the performance integrity of the league, however, due to their ESIC investigation, the team’s official start date was delayed until the second half of 2022.

“Bringing three new teams into the ESL Pro League via this RFP Process is another milestone in our aim to create a sustainable, economical, competitive CS:GO ecosystem, strengthing the global appeal of the ESL Pro League and increasing exposure of competitive CS:GO over the years to come,” concluded Ralf Reichert, ESL Co-CEO.

The XV Season of the ESL Pro League is slated to run from 9th March to 10th April 2022.

• Read more: Natus Vincere win the ESL Pro League Season 14 to complete Intel Grand Slam

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Featured image courtesy of ESL.