The third season of one of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s biggest leagues is about to kick off.
Featuring both a North American and European league, the third season of the Esports Championship Series will start on April 14, as 20 teams will fight for a spot in the playoffs.
Prior to the start of the new season, almost two months were spent determining which teams would advance. A series of regional qualifiers were held, with four teams across both regions compete for a spot in the third ECS season.
The European promotion series saw the legendary Fnatic and Virtus Pro squads retain their spots in the main league, after defeating North and Space Soldiers. Things were different in the North American promotion series, however, as compLexity Gaming were edged out by the relatively unknown roster Bee’s Money Crew. Following the rather lopsided series, which ended 3-0 in the favor of the newcomers, Bee’s Money Crew will now compete against names such as SK Gaming, Cloud9, and OpTic Gaming.
Launched on April 9, 2016, the ECS started out as a joint venture between third-party matchmaking service FaceIt and streaming platform Twitch. For the league’s third season, however, the matches will be streamed exclusively on YouTube—with the internet giant now having the exclusive rights to broadcast both the ESL Pro League and the ECS.
The first broadcast of ECS Season 3 will take place on April 14 at 6:00pm ET (3:00pm PT).
Published: Mar 29, 2017 03:03 pm