The Electronic Sports League is by sheer numbers, the largest online competition platform in the world. It offers leagues and tournaments for players of all skill levels. While it caters to the pro players with highly regarded top leagues and immense sums of prize money (more than 500,000 euro in 2007), it also has a large body of players from the casual and amateur spectrum. The website is the most advanced in the eSports world with tons of functions and an innovative new design coming up. ESL is available across Europe and will expand into other territories in the near future.

What is ESL's biggest challenge at the moment?

Fighting cheating seems to be the biggest. With Aequitas, we already have probably the best anti-cheat tool in the world, but cheat coders sure aren't sleeping. Stepping up the frequency of new detections and advancing Aequitas' functions to ensure the safety of our leagues is very important. With recent successes it seems, we are slowly winning against cheaters, but incidents in pro leagues are just plain bad for the scene, though I suppose people are not only cheating in ESL but also other leagues, but don't get caught there.

What do you see as the next big step for ESL? Where do you think you will be in 3 years?

The new website, the expansion to China and the establishment of world-spanning tournament series like the WC3L Series are the next big steps for ESL with many smaller ones following hard on the heels. It's hard to pinpoint single developments, since we have so many new stuff coming up on all fronts. ESL will still have the same spirit for years to come, but will get more well known and established outside of Europe.

How has the media over the years changed towards the ESL tournaments, events, players and the ESL as a concept?

Definitely to the better. In Germany, the media is already quite used to what we do, which is mainly a benefit of having large spectator events like the Intel Friday Night Games all across the country. If media types, no matter how biased, come to an eSports event with 2000 cheering fans in attendance, they can hardly continue to keep up the prejudices. So we have slowly but steadily improved our standing with the press, so that we now get TV, radio and print coverage on national media for almost all our events. Certainly not always factually accurate coverage, but at least widespread. Most people below 50 now know, that eSports exists and what it is.

Could you reveal something the average gamer most likely does not know about ESL?

The company that manages ESL is the largest eSports company in the world. About 100 full-time employees are working at the company offices in Cologne, managing all aspects of the leagues. We are supported by more than 1000 voluntary admins from all over the world. Another little known fact is that ESL is a highly adaptive platform that is now used for many other website projects besides ESL, for example official websites for games and government sponsored gaming events.

What were the significant events that have been held, or the changes that have been made in past the first decade of the ESL?

I think the most significant transition was, when Turtle Entertainment stopped hosting the CPL Europes and started to concentrate on its own ESL events. From that point on the Intel Friday Night Games went through the roof. We now have up to 2100 people attending the events every week, offering splendid stage and side entertainment with autograph hours, live TV show, gaming areas and prizes. In the tenth season of the German ESL Pro Series more than 10,000 people came to our live events, not counting the over-crowded CeBIT experience! These are large numbers even for Eastern Asian standards.

The ESL has it’s anniversary coming up soon; is there something special planned for the event?

Well there are actually two anniversaries. Besides celebrating 10 years of “The League that Matters” we are also having our tenth German ESL Pro Series Finals on the coming weekend which is gonna be our biggest stand-alone event ever, using an exclusive location in Cologne and offering lots and lots of special stuff to the visitors.

Why should a player join the ESL leagues and not another league-platform like Clanbase, or the GGL for example?

You should ask the players. ;) I think anybody interested in playing online will compare the leagues for himself. We have strong arguments speaking for us, but I'm not gonna advertise our league here.

How do offline-events influence the community?

Drastically. People going to Intel Friday Night Games, cheering with the other 1000-something people in the crowd, have their attitude to their own hobby completely turned over. They see, that they are not alone, that eSports is something that you can be proud of. I know how tacky that sounds for non-Germans, since you don't have the events that we have here. But I can tell you, eSports is for real, and in the long term we want players from anywhere to be able to experience this feeling. When you stand in such a large crowd, watching a CS match with people going oooh and aaah at every scene, cheering their favourites, booing the lesser loved teams, you cannot help but get goosebumps every time. I completely love it, and the visitors also, otherwise they wouldn't come back every time, bringing all their friends to the event.