posted by Karma-,
It was announced today that Turtle Entertainment the company behind the well known ESL brand has sold 74% of itself to Swedish digital entertainment group Modern Times Group. The agreed fee was somewhere around €78 million. Given the rapid growth of both ESL and eSports, it was only a matter of time before a "mainstream" corporation invested in them. Today MTG released a statement, on the subject of their acquisition of ESL.


MTG operate several free television channels throughout the world, and believe that the purchase of ESL is consistent with their plans of investing rapidly growing digital companies. Furthermore they aim to create a television audience for eSports, through this takeover.

Despite the change in ownership, MTG claim:
The founders and management will retain the remaining 26% and continue in their current positions
Thus we can safely assume that the high level of organisation for ESL’s high tier tournaments such as the recent ESL One Frankfurt, can only improve with the new resources available to them.

Crowd shot from ESL One Frankfurt


ESL pulls in huge viewer number for each of their tournaments, as shown by the 70 million unique viewers who have tuned in to them over the past 12 months. This is not inclusive of views of VODs which can be found on ESL’s Youtube channel which would significantly boost this figure.

Currently, Turtle Entertainment has 9 offices across the globe, employing a total of 300 people, although its head offices are based in Cologne. MTG plan to use the global foundations as well as the revenue from advertising, sponsorship and merchandise sales to boost the average generated revenue per esport fan from the current $2 to closer to the $56 figure for traditional sports. Aside from their adventures into the Dota 2 world through ESL One, ESL's flagship product is the Intel Extreme Masters which currently focuses on Starcraft 2, League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

The Intel Extreme Masters - A look into another esports sphere


Managing director of ESL, Ralf Reichert had this to say on where MTG can take ESL and eSports:

When we founded ESL 15 years ago, our goal was to bring eSports to fans all around the world and establish it as a global sport. Today, eSports enjoys worldwide recognition and now, together with MTG, it is time to take eSports to the next level.


With The International 5 now boasting a prizepool of $15 million (equal to half of all other prizes distributed at all tournaments-combined) MTG could not have chosen a better time to act, as eSports in general and Dota 2 specifically push their way into mainstream news.

  • Karma-
    Karma-

    Karma-

    Ed Franks-Moore
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