ESL One Cologne, one of the biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments in the world, will be returning to the the LANXESS arena in 2016. ESL believes that this will be the largest Counter-Strike tournament to date, as the tournament hosted in 2015 shattered records, with 27 million unique viewers and a peak viewership of 1.3 million people throughout the 3-day tournament, despite the event not (yet) being one of the Valve-approved majors. At this time, the only confirmed major is being hosted by MLG in Columbus, Ohio next March.
ESL One is scheduled to happened July 8-10, 2016 and will have a prize pool of $250,000 for the teams that will be competing at the event. If you'd like to buy tickets for ESL One Cologne, they will go on sale on Wednesday, December 9, available online only on Eventim. After Saturday, tickets can be bought at all associated ticket agencies in Germany. General admission will cost attendees €39.90, while people looking for premium tickets, and what ESL is calling "the Global Elite Experience" - which includes access to a private viewing lounge, high quality catering, goodie bags, front-of-the-line access to the venue and premium signing sessions as well as behind the scenes tours, will cost you €2,999.
Last year's ESL Cologne saw 16 teams in the groups, with Fnatic taking the victory, with EnVyUs taking second, and Team SoloMid third. The prize pool was also for $250,000 split across the top 10 teams.
Did you watch last year's ESL Cologne? Are you excited for another year of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments?
