Scott “SirScoots” Smith has revealed that the players of Cloud9, Counter Logic Gaming, Immortals, NRG Esports, Team Liquid and Team SoloMid have unanimously decided to compete in the ESL Pro League (EPL) over the Professional Esports Association (PEA).
Why the Players Chose EPL over the PEAhttps://t.co/se4jtg18nm
— Scott Smith (@SirScoots) January 5, 2017
The drama surrounding the PEA has rumbled on for a little while; yet this effectively seems to be the end of it (for now, at least). The full blog post (found here) from SirScoots explains the reasons that the players have chosen to compete in the EPL over the PEA.
“Regarding the players’ decision to participate in EPL over the PEA, the first point I’d like to make is that EPL was less financially lucrative for the players than the PEA in the short term. While EPL’s proposal included both profit and revenue sharing (compared to the PEA only offering profit sharing), the players viewed this more as a long term benefit” explains Scoots.
“Being in a more contained environment with easier competition might be appealing if the players only cared about making as much money per match as possible in the short term.”
He continues: “They would have made more money, more quickly and easily, with less challenging competition, had they chose the PEA. This was one of the PEA’s primary pitch points, but to most of the players it was actually a cause for concern.”
Esports Insider says: Presumably this is the end of the PEA drama for now. We would now assume that the PEA League that was proposed and seemingly set to be enforced is no longer going to take place as the players have unanimously voted for the EPL. It will be interesting to see what the PEA comes out with and if they’re working on other initiatives other than just the league which they were looking to “force” players to play.