Blizzard Entertainment Aligns with MTG’s ESL & DreamHack

The Modern Times Group (MTG) portfolio companies ESL and DreamHack have entered into a three-year-long strategic agreement with Blizzard Entertainment.

Per the agreement, ESL, an esports company, and the gaming lifestyle festival organizer DreamHack will create new ESL Pro Tour formats for both StarCraft II and Warcraft III: Reforged. Blizzard will provide a respective prize pool of over $1.8 million and over $200,000 for the first season.

The new ESL Pro Tour StarCraft II, taking over from the StarCraft II World Championship Series, will feature tournaments on a minimum of four different continents. Through the change, the global finals will move from BlizzCon to Intel Extreme Masters Katowice. Further, ESL and DreamHack are building a new competitive platform for Warcraft III: Reforged by introducing the new ESL Pro Tour Warcraft III: Reforged.