Even after almost two years of the corona pandemic, there is still no return to normality in sight for the major tournaments in e-sports. International travel, changing teams of participants and different corona rules at the venues make long-term planning hardly possible.

The Canadian company ESL has therefore developed Covid protocols for their tournaments. "We have started tracking Covid in every country where high-level professional players play," said a spokeswoman for the e-sports tournament organizer.

E-athletes can get vaccinated at ESL

In addition, we collect data on the vaccination status of the tournament participants "in order to be able to assess which players we have to pay special attention to when we bring them to the tournament". In addition, players could also get vaccinated at their tournaments.

The fact that prestigious e-sports tournaments have to be canceled or postponed at short notice was also the case several times in the second pandemic year. For example, the League of Legends World Championship was moved from China to Iceland. The World Cup in the football simulation FIFA has been completely canceled.

Dota World Cup with well-rehearsed applause

The Dota 2 World Cup "The International" should also have been played in front of spectators this year after a one-year break. For this, she had even been transferred from Stockholm to Bucharest at short notice.

Four days before the start of the tournament, developer Valve announced that there would be no spectators in the arena. Instead, during the tournament, the applause was digitally recorded as if on a sitcom.

CS:GO tournaments in arenas

After all, a couple of offline tournaments with an audience could take place. The counter-strike tournaments Blast Premier Fall Final and Major Tournament of PGL filled arenas in Denmark and Sweden. Organizers often also found compromises that although players were on site, the audience had to stay at home.

The ESL also wants to at least avoid a return to the tournaments that are held completely online. "Even if you can comfortably host e-sports matches online, the emotional impact is not the same. If the players are present in person, this affects important components of the show, as you can better capture their emotions and thus transmit them to the viewer, " it said.