ESL is adding another parallel between traditional sports and esports: an esports hall of fame.
The esports hall of fame, launched as a semi-autonomous entity from ESL itself, will be operated much like traditional sports halls. A panel of writers, commentators, coaches, analysts and other experts will vote on entrants to the hall.
The first entrant will be for Counter-Strike and will be announced at ESL One Cologne—but ESL has said that inaugurations may well take place at non-ESL events in the future.
While ESL will run the hall of fame, it hopes everyone within the industry will cooperate and collaborate on the project. ESL’s Ken “HotBid” Chen discussed the possibility of a future induction at an MLG event on Twitter with MLG’s Adam Apicella, while Apicella offered access to MLG’s database of results back to 2003.
Counter-Strike will take center stage for the first induction, but the plan is for the hall to include representatives from League of Legends, Dota, StarCraft and fighting games.
Not included on that list are first-person shooters like Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Call of Duty. That would rule out Matthew “Nadeshot” Haig for the moment, who should be an obvious inductee for any esports Hall of Fame, as well as past esports legends like Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel and Dennis “Thresh” Fong.
Players must be retired for at least a year before being considered for induction. While the hall will initially exist purely online, ESL claims a physical location is “in the works.”
