ESL Impact is being shelved after eight seasons of play in the women’s CS2 circuit due to what is being described as an “unsustainable economic model.”
Competitive Counter-Strike has been around in one form or another for more than two decades, making it one of the biggest esports in the world. The game still pulls huge crowds at every major event. But when it comes to women in esports, CS2’s competitive scene has at times fallen short compared even to much younger titles like Valorant. ESL tried to change that with the launch of ESL Impact in 2022, giving fans a bit of hope. But just three years later, the initiative is being put on hold.
The esports company has announced that ESL Impact will end after the upcoming season 8 competition concludes.
According to ESL, the competition’s “current economic model” is not sustainable, leading to the “difficult decision to suspend ESL Impact.”
ESL Impact suspended. Image credit: ESL
ESL stated that while the event has successfully contributed to continuing to raise the profile of women’s esports over the last three years, it simply can’t go on in its current form. The organizer is likely pointing to Impact’s engagement and online viewership versus the cost of running the event. Over the last three years, the event has consistently fallen short of the numbers typically achieved by a typical ESL CS2 tournament.
While it was likely expected by ESL that Impact would not be on par with other events in terms of audience reach, the progress in popularity and viewership over the last year has been disappointingly slow. While Season 7 marked a slight recovery in viewership and reach, the overall growth of ESL Impact has been largely uneven. Following its peak debut of over 110,000 viewers in 2022, the following seasons have struggled to maintain consistent numbers.
Most of the league’s spikes were tied to co-streams by popular Brazilian streamer Gaules when teams from Brazil were competitive, rather than organic audience expansion. Outside these moments, average viewership has rarely exceeded 10,000. Even with record engagement this year, it wasn’t enough to offset relatively poor interest across earlier seasons or justify the mounting costs for the competition to continue on.
The impact of the event had undoubtedly been helpful to CS2’s lacking opportunities for women in esports. Before ESL Impact, few other events existed that included women at this level.
ESL Impact had a major effect on Counter-Strike’s long-neglected women’s scene. Before its launch, there were few top-tier events purposed exclusively for women in CS2. Smaller regional tournaments existed, but save for occasional tentpole events that came and went, none offered the same global structure, prize pool, or visibility that ESL Impact brought to the game.
Featured image credit: PGL
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