ESL, the biggest tournament organizer in CS:GO, has been under fire since it didn’t stream several IEM Katowice North America closed qualifier matches last night. The company has reportedly ignored requests for match IPs that would allow streamers to broadcast these matches on their Twitch channels.
ESL only streamed FURIA vs. Chaos’ and Chaos vs. Complexity’s best-of-three matches during the six hours of qualifier matches. It skipped games that were of high interest to specific regions, such as MIBR vs. INTZ for Brazilian fans, and games that many CS:GO fans could be interested in watching, such the debut of Gen.G against Complexity’s new lineup.
Therefore, CS:GO fans couldn’t watch important matches during this offseason. Apart from the mad fans, Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill, a famous freelancer commentator that worked in several ESL events in the last years, questioned ESL’s decision.
“What the fuck are you thinking? There are members of the community actively wanting to broadcast these matches for you,” SPUNJ wrote on Twitter.
Famous Brazilian caster and streamer Alexandre “gaules” Borba also questioned ESL. He peaked at 30,000 viewers on his stream yesterday by just casting MIBR vs. INTZ and FURIA vs. Chaos directly from HLTV’s scorebot.
“All the Brazilians wanted at that moment was to watch our teams’ matches,” Gaules wrote on Twitter. “I would definitely use any HUD or overlay and promote any and all sponsors needed.”
Gaules wasn’t the only personality trying to stream matches for ESL last night. The well-known English casting duo Vince Hill and Dustin “dusT” Mouret wanted to cast Gen.G vs. Complexity but got no answer from ESL. “Vince and I wanted to cast it on his channel or something but no luck getting in touch for IPs,” dusT said on Twitter.
ESL did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.
