ESEA seems to be wasting no time pushing forward its league efforts. After a successful debut run, they have just announced the second season. Below is the press release:
After a wildly successful first season, I am proud to announce ESEA League Season 2 presented by SteelSeries featuring over $20,000 in cash prizes! ESEA Season 2 will feature Counter-Strike 1.6 invite, main, and open divisions, Counter-Strike: Source open, and Team Fortress 2 open. Invite and main divisions for TF2 will be added in subsequent seasons as we did with 1.6.
ESEA League features the most technologically complete solution including:
Complete web match scheduling
All matches played on our ESEA servers – you are automatically assigned to an ESEA server for your scheduled matches
Protection from our industry leading anti-cheat / config locking Client
Complete box scores and stats for EVERY match (just as we have for pugs and scrims)
HLTV and SourceTV demo downloads for every match within 5 minutes of matches finishing
Automatic live HLTV and SourceTV for every match
Automatic live irc scorebots for every match
Automatic POV demo recording
You build your permanent record with expanded team tools rolling out in February and MarchRegistration is now open but space is limited for each division:
Counter-Strike 1.6 invite (2 matches per week) – 12 invited teams (to be named)
Counter-Strike 1.6 main (2 matches per week) – 32 teams based on Season 1 performance
Counter-Strike 1.6 open (1 match per week) – 64 teams on a first come, first serve basis
Counter-Strike: Source open(1 match per week) – 64 teams on a first come, first serve basis
Team Fortress 2 open (1 match per week) – 32 teams on a first come, first serve basisPrize Pool (total $20,000):
Invite division: $7,600 prize pool – 1st: $4,000, 2nd: $2,500, & 3rd: $1,100
Main division: $4,650 – 1st: $2,000, 2nd: $1,250, 3rd: $800, 4th: $400, & 5th: $200
Open divisions: $2,625 – 1st: $1,500, 2nd: $800, 3rd: $250, 4th: 2500 ESEA Points, & 5th: 1250 ESEA PointsThere is an $8 per season entry fee per player and all participants must be Premium to sign up and compete. We have some other great sponsors lined up in addition to SteelSeries that we’ll be announcing and 100% of all sponsor commitments and entry fees are going directly to the prize pool!
The regular season will run February through March with April playoffs. Don’t miss out. Signup at www.esea.net