IEM Summer 2021: How to watch, schedule, teams, format and more

The 16th season of Intel Extreme Masters (IEM), organized by ESL, gets underway early in June, where 16 of the top CS:GO teams from across the globe will compete. It is a CS:GO esports tournament no fan should miss out on. With that in mind, here's your viewer's guide to IEM Summer 2021, from how to watch all the action live, to the teams competing, the format, schedule and the prize pool.

IEM Summer 2021 prize pool

Teams will be fighting it out for their share of the $250,000 USD prize pool at IEM Summer 2021, as well as a tonne of Pro Tour Points. 

Check out the IEM Summer 2021 prize pool distribution below.

• 1st place - $100,000
• 2nd place - $42,000
• 3rd & 4th place - $20,000
• 5th & 6th place - $10,000
• 7th & 8th place - $6,000
• 9th to 12th place - $5,000
• 13th to 16th place - $4,000

As you can see, all 16 teams will get a piece of the prize pool at IEM Summer 2021, with the winner getting $100,000 USD.

IEM Summer 2021 teams & format

A total of sixteen teams will compete at IEM Summer 2021. The action begins with a Group Stage featuring two groups of eight teams each, following a GSL-Style format. Let's explain this format for those who didn't watch a tonne of StarCraft back in the day.

The first matches in the group stage are best-of-one, with all following matches being best-of-three. The top three teams from each group advance to the IEM Summer 2021 playoffs. The winners advance to the semi-finals, while the runners up advance as the High Seeds of the quarter-finals, and the 3rd-place teams in each group advance to quarter-finals as the Low Seeds.

The opening matches for IEM Summer 2021 Group Stage have already been revealed, and you can check them out below, including the teams competing in the tournament.

IEM Summer 2021 Group A:

(Picture: ESL)

IEM Summer 2021 Group B:

(Picture: ESL)

The playoffs of IEM Summer 2021 will follow a single-elimination bracket format. Both the semi-finals and the quarter-finals are best-of-three, while the grand final is best-of-five.

IEM Summer 2021 schedule

The Group Stage of IEM Summer 2021 is scheduled to run from 3rd to 6th June, while the Playoffs will start on 11th June and end on 13th June with the grand final.

Each day, the CS:GO esports action is scheduled to kick off at roughly 12:00 CET (Midday) as this is a European tournament. 

How to watch IEM Summer 2021

You can watch all the IEM Summer 2021 action via the ESL CS:GO Twitch channel. There should also be a tonne of highlights on the ESL Counter-Strike YouTube channel for those who miss out on some of the matches.

For your viewing convenience, we've embedded the official Twitch channel below.

ESL_CSGO - TwitchRERUN: Natus Vincere vs. mousesports [Overpass] Map 1 - DreamHack Masters Spring 2021- Group ATwitch