ELEAGUE announces casters and analysts

Season one of ELEAGUE’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament kicks off on Tuesday and we now know the lineup of casters and analysts hired for the 10-week event.

A joint venture between Turner Broadcasting and talent management agencies WME | IMG, ELEAGUE will see 24 teams battling it out for their share of $1.2 million in both the first and second seasons, a total of $2.4 million this year. Every Friday the finals will be broadcast live on national American television station TBS and simultaneously on Twitch. With the general American public watching and such high stakes, it was important for ELEAGUE to have a good host of casters and analysts, which were announced earlier today via Twitter.

Sitting at the casting desk will be Anders Blume, Auguste “Semmler” Massonnat, James Bardolph, and Daniel “DDK” Kapadia. Meanwhile the analysts for the season are Richard Lewis, Duncan “Thorin” Shields, Jason “Moses” O’Toole, Dustin Mouret, and Mohamad “mOE” Assad.

The casters are all well-known veterans in the CS:GO scene, with the pairing of Anders and Semmler, and Bardolph and DDK, a favorite among fans. While the analyst desk is mostly familiar faces, the addition of Mouret and mOE is somewhat of a surprise. Mouret is known mostly for his casting work at North American broadcasts of CEVO and ESEA, meanwhile mOE was playing CS:GO for former NBA player Rick Fox’s team, Echo Fox, up until April 2 when he quit citing a lack of desire to play at a professional level. MOE will be reunited with his former teammates at ELEAGUE, as Echo Fox is one of the invited teams.

While the announcement doesn’t explicitly say that the casters and analysts have been hired for both the first and second seasons, it is probably safe to assume that you will be seeing them again later this year.

Competition kicks off on Tuesday, and will be broadcast on ELEAGUE’s Twitch channel from Tuesday through Thursday, then on TBS and Twitch on Fridays. The first six weeks of the tournament is the group stages, with four teams competing each week and the winner heading through to the playoffs.