ESL Pro League
The ESL Pro League is a professional esports league. It is based on four regions: Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania, and currently comprises up to 24 teams. The ESL Pro League is considered to be the premier professional CS:GO league in the world and is one of the major professional leagues in esports. The ESL Pro League began as a venture between the Electronic Sports League and E-Sports Entertainment Association League. Its inaugural season started on May 4, 2015.
History
In early November 2014, the German-based Electronic Sports League announced the creation of the ESL Pro League as the European ESL league. On April 28, 2015, ESL announced a joint venture with the North American-based E-Sports Entertainment Association League to provide a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league with 500,000 USD in total prize money in the first season between two continents. Since then, it has expanded to fourteen teams per region and raised its prize pool to 1,000,000 USD and has two season per year. ESL rose the prize pool once more by making the teams fight for $1,000,000 in the Finals, raising the season prize pool by $250,000. In addition, the number of teams in the finals rose to sixteen, with more teams from regions other than North American and Europe participating in the Finals.Format
The first season featured twelve teams from each continent that were invited by ESL to participate in its inaugural season that started on May 4, 2015 with Team Dignitas defeating Titan. In the first three seasons, the EPL gave the top four teams in each league a ticket to the finals on an offline tournament. Starting with Season 4, ESL decided to expand the Pro League to 28 teams, so that there would be fourteen teams per league. This also meant that six teams from each region would qualify for the offline finals. For each regular season, teams would play every team twice in its respective league, so that each team played twenty-two games for the first three seasons and twenty-four games from season four to season seven. However, in Season 7, two teams – Counter Logic Gaming and Misfits – dropped their rosters and forfeited their Pro League licenses, reducing the number of North American teams to twelve. Also in season 7, ESL decided to expand geographically by creating the Asia-Pacific and LA LEAGUE divisions, bumping the number of teams up from 24 to 40. This was later for season 9 changed to four regions as North America and South America were integrated into one region. In addition, the Europe and Americas region features offline group play. Season 9 featured eight teams from Europe, six teams from the Americas, one team from Asia, and one team from the Oceania region.The first three offline finals had eight teams, in which teams were split up into two groups of four in a double-elimination, GSL group format and two teams from each group qualified for the playoffs. The playoffs featured four teams, with the semifinals being a best of three and the finals being a best of five. Starting from season four to season six, teams were split up into two groups of six and each team would play every team in its group once for the group stage. Three teams from each group qualified for the playoffs. The round of 6 and the semifinals are best of three series and the finals area best of five, with the exception of season four, in which the finals were a best of three. In season seven, with the EPL expansion, the number of teams went up to sixteen.
ESL Pro League also features a promotion and relegation stage, in which the worst performing team in each league after each season is relegated to ESEA's Premier Division while the best team from the Premier Division is promoted to the Pro League. In addition, the next two worst performing teams by the end of the Pro League Season and the next two best teams in the Premier Division play out a double elimination bracket to fight for two spots in the following season's Pro League while the other two would play in the Premier Division.
Unlike the Valve-sponsored, in which team slots are given based on the player rosters, ESL awards spots to the organization. For instance, Valve would consider SK Gaming to have won two Major Championships, as the players won one at MLG Columbus 2016 while under contract with Luminosity Gaming and won another at ESL One Cologne 2016 while under contract with SK Gaming. In addition, if the majority of the roster transfers to another team, Valve would give take away the spot from the old team and give it to the team that the core of the roster headed to. At ESL One Katowice 2015, PENTA Sports made it to the top eight at the tournament, giving the players a guaranteed spot at the next major, ESL One Cologne 2015; however, players denis, Spiidi, and nex were bought out by mousesports, thus giving mousesports PENTA Sports's spot at Cologne 2015 as the majority of PENTA moved to the mousesports team. EPL would consider Luminosity Gaming, which won Season 3, to have one title and SK Gaming, which won Season 6, to also have just one title. However, a team is allowed to sell or simply give its Pro League license to another organization, as in the case of Tempo Storm transferring its roster to the Immortals organization for Season 4.
Season 11 teams
Notable former teams
Former teams that are noteworthy are listed below. The country beside the team name was the nationality of the last players fielded by the team before being out of Pro League. "Inactive" indicates the team is not active in the Counter-Strike scene, but the team is active in other eSports. "Defunct" indicates the team shut down operations due to any reason, such as financial issues. "Premier Division," also known as the Mountain Dew League, means that the team is in the division under the Pro League. FlipSid3 Tactics became the first team that took part in an EPL season to be demoted to the Main Division, which is the division under the Premier Division.| Team | Last appearance | Status |
 Team SoloMid | Season 2 | Inactive |
 Titan | Season 2 | Defunct |
 FlipSid3 Tactics | Season 3 | Main Division |
 PENTA Sports | Season 4 | Inactive |
 Echo Fox | Season 5 | Inactive |
| Selfless Gaming | Season 5 | Defunct |
 Winterfox | Season 5 | Inactive |
| Counter Logic Gaming | Season 6 | Inactive |
| Misfits | Season 6 | Inactive |
 SK Gaming | Season 7 | Inactive |
Seasons
The list of seasons and the top two teams in each season are in shown below. The number next to the teams shows what positions they placed during the regular season in their respective leagues.| No. | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Ref |
| 1 | Cologne |  Fnatic | Cloud9 | 3-1 | |
| 2 | Burbank | Fnatic | Natus Vincere | 3-2 | |
| 3 |  London | Luminosity Gaming | G2 Esports | 3-2 | |
| 4 | São Paulo | Cloud9 | SK Gaming | 2-1 | |
| 5 | Dallas | G2 Esports | North | 3-1 | |
| 6 | Odense | SK Gaming |  FaZe Clan | 3-1 | |
| 7 | Dallas | Astralis | Team Liquid | 3-1 | |
| 8 | Odense | Astralis | Team Liquid | 3-1 | |
| 9 | Montpellier | Team Liquid | G2 Esports | 3-1 | |
| 10 | Odense | mousesports | Fnatic | 3-0 | |
| 11 EU | Online | Fnatic | mousesports | 3-2 | |
| 11 NA | Online | Team Liquid | Evil Geniuses | 3-0 |
Notes