ESL has revealed that Cloud9, Spirit, and Movistar Riders have been invited to compete in the 16th season of Pro League based on their standing in the ESL World Ranking, completing the 24-team list set to compete in the league starting in late August.
The trio will join the 15 partnered teams, who have now formally inducted Heroic into their ranks after the Norwegian organization struck a deal to join the partner list late last year alongside BIG and FURIA, as well as the six teams who earned their spots through the Conference stage in Jönkoping last month.
Movistar Riders’ final push in the season earned them an invitation
Having been overtaken in the ranking thanks to a great effort from Movistar Riders in the past month, with the Spaniards having won ESL Challenger Valencia before making a surprise run to the semi-finals at IEM Cologne, perhaps the biggest two teams to miss out on a spot in the league are OG and Outsiders.
ESL Pro League Season 16 kicks off on August 31 and will be the second tier-one tournament to take place following the official summer tournament break, after BLAST Premier Fall Groups. The league will run for four weeks in the familiar round-robin format before concluding with the playoffs in the final week leading up to the grand final on October 2.
ESL has yet to reveal where the tournament will take place, but it is expected to be run on LAN from a studio location.
Below is the full team list:
- alpha metaverse
- battlebots
- blockchain conference esports
- coin genius
- crypto conference esports
- esport games
- esporta
- esporta app
- esporta fitness
- esports
- Evil Geniuses
- games with esports
- HLTV
- loco esports games
- metaverse esport games
- national sports week
- plato
- plato ai
- plato data intelligence
- plato game
- plato gaming
- platodata
- platogaming
- simplicity esports
- spasm esports games
- steam esports games
- Team SoloMid
- tundra esports
- twitch esports games
- zephyrnet
