ESL sets 2026 co-streaming rules: Twitch only, always on, 5% webcam

ESL has rewritten the terms on which streamers may show its tournaments on their own channels. The tournament organizer announced on its official account on April 10, 2026, an update of its co-streaming guidelines for 2026 and beyond, set out on a page of its site titled Co-Streaming Guidelines 2026. The text is addressed to the people it calls official English co-streamers of ESL events. It asks for no money. It asks for almost everything else: one platform, one feed, the whole broadcast from start to finish, every sponsor of ESL left in view, and a webcam that covers no more than 5% of the picture while a match is being played.

Co-streaming is the practice of a streamer rebroadcasting a tournament on a personal channel, with the streamer's own voice and community chat on top of the official pictures. ESL's page presents the 2026 rules as a common project with those streamers, who in its words give their communities the best seat in the house. It also says plainly who pays for the show: brand partners, whose money the organizer credits for prize pools, arena events and the quality of the production.

ESL, Co-Streaming Guidelines 2026, announced by the organizer on April 10, 2026.

One platform and one feed

The guidelines are organized in eight sections, from conduct to termination. The second, on technical requirements, sets two limits that shape everything after it.

The first is the platform. Co-streams are allowed on Twitch only. YouTube, TikTok and Facebook are named as closed unless ESL grants an express written exemption. A YouTube channel that obtains one has to be approved and whitelisted for copyright purposes before the broadcast, meaning that ESL registers it in advance as authorized to carry the footage, and the organizer declines responsibility for copyright claims that arise outside that process.

The second is the source of the pictures. A co-streamer may no longer capture the public program stream that everyone watches on Twitch or YouTube. The official English feeds are handed out through a server ESL runs on Discord, a chat application, under the name Broadcast Distribution, and the page describes them as a specialized, premium co-streaming feed provided by the organizer. Taking the video from ESL's own Counter-Strike channel on Twitch, or from the address of any other platform, is strictly prohibited. The text does not say whether the dedicated feed differs from the public one in its content or its timing.

A third rule is about naming. The title of the co-stream has to include the official name of the tournament, and the example ESL gives is IEM Cologne 2026.

A broadcast in three phases

The section that gives the guidelines their character is called Always-On Coverage. Its first line states the principle in one short sentence. "Costreamers are approved as parallel distribution hubs," the page says. The next sentence gives the aim, which is to eliminate what ESL calls audience leakage and to keep the story of the broadcast intact.

In practice the stream has to run continuously from start to finish. Switching to another stream, to a game of one's own or to a talk segment while an ESL tournament is live is not allowed. Within that frame, the freedom left to the co-streamer depends on what the official broadcast is showing.

The desk is the studio table where hosts and analysts talk between matches, and a walkout is the entrance of the teams. The page groups those moments as interstitials, and its list of sponsor assets includes dedicated segments, analyst or arena segments among them. Under the 2026 text they stay on screen with their sound.

The guidelines do not say whether a co-streamer may speak over the official commentary during play; they require only that ESL's audio stays audible at a reasonable volume. They also do not treat the breaks between two maps of the same match as a separate case.

The 5% rule and the small print of the screen

The fourth section gives the rules their nickname. During gameplay, the co-streamer's personal webcam must occupy 5% or less of the total on-screen space. It may not sit on top of the HUD, the heads-up display that shows the score, the players' money and the round timer, nor on the places where ESL's sponsor logos rotate.

Two smaller allowances follow. A chat feed shown on screen has to be transparent and take up less than 3% of the picture. The streamer's social media handles get less than 2%. No additional digital overlay and no personal sponsor overlay may be added during the broadcast.

Added together, the three elements a co-streamer may place over a match, webcam, chat and handles, stay under 10% of the screen: 5 plus 3 plus 2. The remaining nine tenths belong to the official picture.

Sponsors: what must stay and what needs approval

The fifth section carries the title Commercial Inheritance and Personal Sponsors, and the first half of that title is the heart of the document. A co-stream inherits ESL's commercial program whole. The page says the organizer's sponsorship integrations must remain 100% visible and unaltered throughout the broadcast, and it lists them: the logo rotation and banner placed inside the game, lower thirds, which are the graphic strips at the bottom of the picture, raffles, break screen logos, the logo rotation of the analyst desk, the L-frame, a frame of advertising around a reduced picture, audio cues, dedicated segments and commercial ads. None may be hidden, covered or muted.

The second half concerns the streamer's own partners. Any personal sponsor integration needs ESL's prior written approval. Two lists narrow what can be approved.

The first holds the product categories ESL keeps for itself. The page attributes them to EFG, the initials of ESL FACEIT Group, the company ESL belongs to. They include computer processors and graphics cards, energy and soft drinks, logistics, betting, equipment manufacturers, data providers, gaming platforms, chairs, peripherals such as headsets and monitors, retailers, collectibles and finance.

The second list is closed to everyone. Among its entries are hard alcohol, firearms, tobacco and e-cigarettes, political advertising, pornography, account selling, and skin gambling, trading or marketplaces. Skins are the cosmetic weapon finishes of Counter-Strike, which are bought and sold among players. The page also bars content that violates Valve's intellectual property rights or the Steam Subscriber Agreement. Valve is the publisher of Counter-Strike 2.

What a co-streamer gives and gets

The guidelines describe the arrangement as an exchange of value for value. ESL supplies the production, the feed and the official status at zero cost, under a heading that reads Zero Licensing Fees. In return the co-streamer accepts obligations that go beyond the layout of a screen.

One is conduct. Disparaging ESL, its affiliates or the sponsors of a tournament is prohibited. Co-streamers must refrain from personal statements about politics, religion or sensitive regional topics during the broadcast, and they are responsible for active moderation of their chat.

Another is data. Partners must share all their viewership data with EFG on request once an event is over. A third is image: the co-streamer grants ESL a perpetual, royalty-free license to use their likeness, their voice and excerpts of the co-stream for marketing and promotion.

The last is that the permission stays with one person. "Co-streaming rights are reserved strictly for the individual granted permission," the page says.

The page also carries the organizer's own summary of the change. New in 2026 are the dedicated feed, the webcam rule of about 5% and the always-on commitment. No longer allowed are capturing the public Twitch or YouTube stream, covering the broadcast with overlays or webcams, and promoting personal sponsors without written approval. Unchanged, in the organizer's list, are the streamer's community and voice, the freedom of the pre-show and post-show, and the absence of a fee.

Why audience counts are money in Counter-Strike

The guidelines give one reason for their strictness, the protection of the sponsors who fund the events. Other documents of the past weeks show how closely audiences and payments are tied on the Counter-Strike circuit.

On March 9, 2026, HLTV reported that PGL, another organizer, would pay teams a yearly viewership incentive under its program for 2027 and 2028: points awarded to 12 teams at each event on the average cumulative viewership their matches bring, multiplied by the number of events attended, with a pool of US$2.8 million for the 16 best. HLTV described the mechanism as similar to ESL's current scheme, and added that ESL was the only one of the three largest organizers that had yet to announce its incentive plan for the following year. Neither that report nor ESL's guidelines says whether viewers of co-streams are counted in such schemes. What the guidelines do settle is that ESL can ask each co-streamer for the figures.

Other publishers organize the practice differently. The LEC, the European League of Legends league run by Riot Games, published its 2026 broadcast line-up on January 13. It announced coverage in 17 languages across broadcast partners and co-streamers, with partners for nine of those languages, and it named its co-streamers one by one, marking those partnered directly with one of its teams. That page describes co-streams as something close to virtual watch parties. It sets out no screen rules.

What the page leaves open

ESL's text is precise on percentages and silent on several points a streamer would look for. It gives no start date and no list of the tournaments it covers; it speaks of the biggest ESL events and takes IEM Cologne 2026 as its example. It does not say whether approval is given event by event or for a season. It mentions no broadcast delay, no revenue share, no tiers of co-streamer and no limit on their number.

The way in is described in two lines. English-language co-streamers request permission through a co-streaming form linked from the page. Requests for other languages go to ESL by email.

An ESL tournament in Counter-Strike 2 starts within days. IEM Rio 2026 runs from April 13 to 19 with a prize pool of US$1,000,000, according to HLTV's report of April 8 on its broadcast team. ESL announced an English broadcast on two streams for it, an A stream and a B stream, each with four commentators.

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