ESL One Birmingham Online: Schedule, teams, prize pool, format and how-to-watch

Both the ESL One Los Angeles and Birmingham tournaments had to be moved entirely online in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, we've seen some incredible Dota 2 esports from ESL One Los Angeles, and now, it is time for ESL One Birmingham.

Here's everything you need to know about ESL One Birmingham Online, including the schedule, format, prize pool, teams and how-to-watch, so you don't miss a second of the Dota 2 esports action.

• Read more: Dota 2 Newbee team received a lifetime ban from CDA and ImbaTV

About ESL Birmingham Online

The ESL Birmingham Online tournament is split into four regional leagues, each with their own prize pool, depending on how big each league is.

The Europe/CIS league is by far the biggest, featuring a total of 16 teams, including the likes of two-time TI winning champions, OG, as well as top contenders such as Team Secret, Nigma, and more.

The ESL One Birmingham online regional leagues give Dota 2 fans a chance to watch top teams compete, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the change to online regional leagues, the ESL One Birmingham Online doesn't form part of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) events, as Valve is still figuring out how to handle the DPC, and even delayed The International 2020. 

Team Nigma fans might have gotten a bit worried their team wouldn't get an invite to ESL One Birmingham Online. However, on 18th May, Nigma announced they would be the final invited team.

Teams

Each of the ESL One Birmingham Online regional leagues features most of the top teams from the region. However, not all leagues have the same number of teams participating:

• Europe/CIS - 16 teams
• China - 8 teams
• North/South America - 6 teams
• Southeast Asia - 6 teams

With the recently completed regional qualifiers, we now know the rest of the teams competing at ESL One Birmingham Online.

Europe/CIS qualifiers:

• Aggressive Mode
• Team Unique

North/South America qualifiers:

• Thunder Predator

China qualifiers:

• CDEC Gaming
• Longinus

SEA qualifiers:

• Reality Rift

All the regions are stacked with some of the best teams out there, which means we are definitely in for some fantastic Dota 2 esports, especially with a nice prize pool up for grabs in each region.

Prize pool

With four regional leagues in ESL One Birmingham online, and different sizes for the leagues, there are also different prize pools, with the European/CIS having by far the biggest of the lot.

• Europe/CIS - $200,000
• China - $55,000
• North/South America - $40,000
• Southeast Asia - $40,000

A total of $335,000 is up for grabs in ESL One Birmingham 2020.

Format

Despite there being different numbers of teams in the regional tournament, ESL One Birmingham Online follows the same format across regions. 

There will be a group stage, with a round-robin format, and all matches are best-of-three.

The ESL One Birmingham Online format (Picture: ESL)

This is followed with a double-elimination bracket, with all matches being best-of-three, with the exception of the grand finals in each region, which will be best-of-five. 

Schedule

The ESL One Birmingham Online tournament series will run from 21st May to 7th June 2020.

On 21st May, the SEA group stage kicks off, followed by the Europe/CIS group stage on 24th May. The North/South American group stage begins on 25th May, while the China group stage begins on 26th May.

All grand finals are scheduled to take place on 7th June, with the exception of the SEA regional tournament, which ends on 31st May.

At the time of writing, specific start times and matchups for each region is unknown. However, you can expect the ESL One Birmingham Online SEA group stage matches to start at 09:00 CET.

ESL One Birmingham Online: How-to-watch

The ESL One Birmingham Online Dota 2 esports tournament will be broadcasted on Twitch.tv as well as a multistream on the ESL website.

• ESL website multistream
• English