Two of the largest esports tournament organizers, ESL and FACEIT, have been purchased by Savvy Gaming Group for a staggering $1.5 billion. Formerly owned by The Modern Times Group, ESL and its many tournaments across various esport titles will now change hands. The Savvy Gaming Group is backed by the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund, and will now lead both companies in this new chapter.
ESL hosts countless notable events across both CS:GO and Dota 2, including the ESL Pro League, Intel Extreme Masters, and ESL One. FACEIT is similarly a leading third party tournament organizer for titles such as CS:GO and Rainbow6 Siege. Though the companies are merging, the leadership will relatively remain the same as Craig Levine and Niccolo Maisto will act as co-CEOs. ESL’s co-founder Ralf Reichert will now act as the executive chairman.
Regarding the merger, Maisto stated “By uniting these complementary capabilities, and with the backing of SGG, we are taking a long-term approach to develop a more robust platform to better support the future of the whole competitive gaming ecosystem and generate more value for all its stakeholders in a sustainable way.”
The Savvy Game Group is currently headed by former Activision VP, Brian Ward. All five of SGG is reportedly very committed in investing growing resources into the growing esports scene, certainly emphasized by this massive investment deal.
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