ESL One Hamburg powered by Intel, Europe’s largest Dota 2 festival, wrapped up its successful first edition at the Barclaycard Arena in Hamburg, Germany on October 28-29, 2017. The world’s eight best Dota 2 teams battled for a lion’s share of the $1 million prize pool, in the first event of the 2017/2018 competitive season, and in front of a packed stadium.
After some competitive matchups, Team Virtus.pro, which entered the tournament through the CIS qualifier, was able to beat Team Secret 2-0 in the grand final, securing the coveted 750 Qualifier Points that lead to The International 2018 and winning their very first championship title. On top of that, Virtus.pro’s player, Solo, was awarded a brand new Mercedes-Benz worth €50,000, as fans and experts nominated him to be the tournament’s MVP. Mercedes-Benz showed even more unique activations by providing customized team cars and offering shuttle services from the hotel to the Barclaycard Arena for players and staff for the duration of the tournament.
In addition to the over 10,000 fans that attended ESL One Hamburg at the Barclaycard Arena on each of the two main event days, more than 25 million unique viewers watched the tournament online, marking a 250% growth from ESL One Frankfurt 2016. Over 7 million hours of content have been consumed through Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, HuomaoTV and Douyu with a peak concurrent viewership across all platforms reached more than 1.5 million viewers. Throughout the tournament, a high level of digital engagement was logged as 38.5 million social media impressions have been generated by over 8 million users, featuring a 50% increase compared to last year’s ESL One in Frankfurt.
“We couldn’t be prouder after such an epic start into the competitive Dota 2 season”, said Ulrich Schulze Senior Vice President of Product at ESL. “Watching thousands of cheering fans in the packed Barclaycard Arena is great reward for the hard work we have invested into making ESL One Hamburg a truly legendary esports event. The event has not only strengthened our bond to the Dota 2 community but has also shown how non endemic sponsors like Mercedes-Benz can be implement into esports in an unique yet natural way.”
Alongside the main tournament, ESL One Hamburg offered a broad variety of side activities for the fans on-site, including the European regional qualifiers for the VR Challenger League, where top players competed in VR title, “Echo Arena,” for a share of the league’s $200,000 USD prize pool. The fan experience also included bull riding, signing sessions with teams and talents, and the cosplay contest. Additionally, the German Glitch-Hop artist TheFatRat performed the official ESL One Hamburg 2017 song “Hear Oblivion” live on stage, opening the grand final ceremony.
Up next in the ESL One event series for Dota 2 are ESL One Genting 2018, which is set to take place at the Arena of Stars in Genting, Malaysia on January 26-28, followed by ESL One Katowice 2018, Poland’s first Dota 2 Major, which will be held at the legendary Spodek Arena on February 24-25. For more information, check out our official event website and follow ESL One Dota 2 on Twitter and Facebook.