After the ESL championship in Counter-Strike stagnated in the pandemic, a merger with the 99Damage League should set up the league for the future. But No Limit Gaming is disappointed after the first season - and sees black for the future of the league.

"We had ten full-time teams in the league, who all put money into Counter-Strike, because we were hoping that something big would happen in the future," says NLG founder and Managing Director Stefan Schillhabel in an interview with the German Press Agency.

But too little money came back from the scene, as the interest was too low: "I hardly know people who voluntarily do German counter-strike.»

ESL Championship: NLG only with Hobbyteam

The organization had taken over a place in the league at the beginning of 2019 and was thus one of the younger teams. A full-time paid placement would be too expensive in the future.

At the beginning of the year, the organizers ESL and Freaks 4U Gaming had merged their two German counter-strike leagues. Since then, Freaks 4U from Berlin-Spandau has been the organizer. And Schillhabel accuses this of focusing more on other games - such as League of Legends or Valorant. "Counter-Strike is almost the unloved child that you kind of sit out. It's like you're planning to close the store at some point.»

However, the league cannot be the biggest source of income for the teams, says Sprout's manager, Daniel Paulus. "You have a lot of opportunities to generate attention and reach. And it is then also up to the organizations themselves to follow these paths and be successful in some form, " he says in an interview with dpa. To do this, teams would have to compete mainly in international tournaments in order to be interesting for sponsors.

Counter-Strike: player salaries explode during Corona

According to Lennart Kreuter, project manager at Alternate Attax, salaries in the German scene are often too high for this. "If you sign a team, it generates success and reach for you, and this is how you acquire sponsors," he says in the dpa interview. "If the players already say I want this and that, but don't deliver anything in return, then you have no way to acquire sponsors.»

Teams from other countries are often more successful in international competition despite lower salaries, adds Paulus.

Criticism of the live stream of the ESL Championship

Schillhabel was particularly critical of the quality of the live broadcasts, which had fallen short of expectations with faulty graphics, for example. The organizers would ignore feedback, some errors have not been fixed to this day.

"If you address something eight times, and there's never anything coming back, then at some point you stop criticizing," says Schillhabel. Also on the website of 99Damage there is too little coverage for him. According to Freaks 4U, all participants always have the opportunity to provide feedback. They are in close exchange.

Sprout and Attax partly agree with NLG's criticism. "I talked to the people from ESL, Freaks 4U and other teams because I thought the season itself was disastrous. And everyone was totally dissatisfied, " says Paul. "Somehow the solution did not come. And why is that? Probably only Freaks 4U can say that in the end." However, he points out that those responsible for him have always been open to criticism.

LoL-Liga Prime League becomes a role model

That the ESL Championship, for example, lags behind the League of Legends League Prime League, also organized by Freaks 4U, which is financially supported by the developer Riot Games, is not surprising from the point of view of Alternate.

"It must be made clearer to the fans that it is simply logical that the ESL Championship does not have the same budget," says Kreuter. "You can't rent a studio with two casters, two analysts and a presenter, that doesn't work on its own.»

However, Schillhabel believes that a similar level can be achieved with the right commitment for the organizers. "The product that you created with the Prime League could also be built up if you were to invest and take risks," says Schillhabel. This can be achieved without the financial support of a publisher. "If the audience figures are right, then you will also be able to win sponsors there.»

Organizers want to improve funding

Freaks 4U, on the other hand, points to the already existing issues. "Large sums are being invested by the organizers to realize live broadcasts on a weekly basis or, as recently, to implement a studio finale in Berlin," the company explains in a statement. "We are currently working on various models to improve the monetization of the league.»

While NLG will only provide one unpaid team in the league in the future, Sprout and Alternate Attax will hold on to the ESL championship. "I think that the child has not yet fallen into the well in any case, but he is sitting on the sidelines like this," Kreuter says about the state of the league. "We are at a zero point, but if everyone pulls together, I am convinced that this can be saved again.»

Paul also believes in improvement: "We all know that it is unacceptable and must change, and I firmly assume that all this will go a lot better next season.»