ESL Releases Dota 2 calendar for 2024!

As anticipated, although not without the fear that it might not happen, ESL came to the rescue of Dota 2’s professional scene and announced a decent plan for 2024. This is the company that organized both Riyadh Masters 2023 and ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023. Not to mention all those $1 million DreamLeague events.

ESL has a long history of organizing Dota 2 tournaments, as well as Counter-Strike events. And since they have the necessary funds to rescue Dota 2, it’s probably a huge relief for everyone in this community that they stepped in. But it’s still quite disappointing to see Valve ignoring one of their best games to date.

Valve makes billions of dollars and would not need to do something spectacular to organize 3-4 tournaments each year. They could also help fund the prize pools of those tournaments and it would be enough. ESL or PGL could do the rest. That would keep most of the big teams afloat.

They don’t seem interested in doing that, even though the company has invested a lot in making Dota 2 what it is. The game is not properly advertised, and the only major form of advertisement it received over the years was the live events.

When you own one of the most entertaining esports in the world, letting its esports scene die is a huge mistake. The game still has around 8 million active players, as well as millions of former players who still enjoy following the game’s tournaments. The demand for Dota 2 tournaments definitely exists. All that is needed is a serious provider.

Get ready for an incredible year of Dota with the #ESLProTour Season 2!

Teams will earn EPT points via multiple DreamLeague and ESL One tournaments throughout 2023/24; you’ll see the BEST teams at something BIG next summer 👀

Check out our Calendar below! 👇 pic.twitter.com/9xm8vCxYPT

— ESL Dota2 (@ESLDota2) November 29, 2023

ESL’s plans

ESL announced a calendar that actually started with DreamLeague S21, which already happened. The next event on that calendar will be ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023. Here’s what’s on the menu for 2024:

• DreamLeague S22: February 25 – March 10
• ESL One EU: April 22 – 28
• DreamLeague S23: May 20 – 26
• A global tournament yet to be announced: July

This last event will likely be much bigger than The International itself. As we saw this year, TI had a prize pool of $3 million while Riyadh Masters had a prize pool of $15 million. It’s hard to call TI the world championship when it’s five times smaller than some other tournament that precedes it.

We’re still waiting to see who else will step in and organize Dota 2 events in 2024. BetBoom might be one of the providers, and possibly Perfect World or PGL.

Header: ESL