ZOWIE becomes the monitor of IEM and ESL Pro League through 2027

The screens in front of the players at ESL FACEIT Group's biggest Counter-Strike 2 events will carry one brand for the next two years. On Thursday, February 26, 2026, the organizer announced an expanded partnership with ZOWIE, the gaming monitor brand owned by BenQ, as Esports Insider and The Esports Advocate both reported that day. ZOWIE becomes the exclusive official monitor supplier for the group's main Counter-Strike 2 tournaments in 2026 and 2027, and a global partner of the organizer.

Under the agreement, ZOWIE's XL2586X+ monitors are to be used at every Intel Extreme Masters event over the two years, the IEM Cologne Major in June included, and across the next four seasons of ESL Pro League, the first of them Season 23, which starts on March 1. Neither outlet reported financial terms.

Esports Insider and The Esports Advocate, February 26, 2026.

What the agreement covers

The deal has two parts: the equipment on stage, and the brand around it. On the equipment side, ZOWIE supplies the monitors for the tournaments ESL FACEIT Group counts as its key Counter-Strike 2 events. Esports Insider names them as all Intel Extreme Masters events in 2026 and 2027, a series better known by its initials, IEM, and the next four ESL Pro League seasons. The Esports Advocate gives the list in more detail: the IEM editions in Cologne, China, Rio, Atlanta and Krakow, and ESL Pro League Seasons 23 and 24 in 2026, followed by Seasons 25 and 26 in 2027.

The word exclusive matters here: Esports Insider describes ZOWIE as the exclusive official monitor supplier for those events, and the model named for them is the XL2586X+.

On the brand side, Esports Insider reports that ZOWIE appears across the tournament broadcasts and hosts in-person activations at the venues, including product experiences and chances for fans to win tickets to upcoming tournaments. The Esports Advocate adds that the brand is visible on livestreams and on site, with stage takeovers and fan interactions among the activities planned.

Andreas Jernberg, vice president of brand partnership development at ESL FACEIT Group, described the expansion in the announcement as making ZOWIE the organizer's official monitor supplier and global partner. Jay Wu, president of BenQ Europe, spoke for the brand. Neither statement gave a value, a payment structure or the terms of any renewal after 2027.

A refresh rate in plain words

The figure the announcement put forward is a refresh rate of 600Hz. A monitor's refresh rate is the number of times per second the screen draws a new image: 600Hz means 600 new images a second. In a fast shooter such as Counter-Strike 2, where a duel can be decided in a fraction of a second, a higher rate shows each movement in smaller steps. Jernberg cited the 600Hz rate of the XL2586X+ in the announcement, and The Esports Advocate refers to the screen as the XL2586X+ 600Hz monitor.

The model is not new to ESL FACEIT Group's stages. The same XL2586X+ 600Hz monitors were announced for IEM Krakow in January, before this agreement was widened to the two-year calendar.

From Krakow to a two-year deal

The two companies did not start from nothing. The Esports Advocate reports that ESL FACEIT Group first partnered with ZOWIE in 2025, when the brand was named a global partner, and describes the new agreement as a renewal and an expansion.

The step that preceded it came at the start of this season. On January 26, 2026, Esports Insider reported that ESL had brought in ZOWIE to provide the monitors for IEM Krakow 2026, the first IEM event of the Counter-Strike 2 calendar. That tournament ran offline from January 28 to February 8, with 24 teams invited from the Valve Regional Standings, the ranking Valve uses to hand out places at events. It had first been planned for Katowice before moving to Krakow.

The format gave the new screens plenty of use. A Play-In Stage of 16 teams, played as a double-elimination bracket in which a team is out after two series lost, sent eight teams on. They joined eight invited teams in two double-elimination groups of eight, and the top three of each group reached the playoffs, a single-elimination bracket of best-of-three matches with a best-of-five grand final. Esports Insider gave the prize money as US$1 million plus US$250,000 in club rewards.

ESL FACEIT Group's own report on the event, published on February 8, gives its scale. The playoffs filled the TAURON Arena Krakow from February 6 to 8, a sold-out event with more than 38,000 attendees from more than 50 countries. Team Vitality won the title with a 3-1 win over FURIA in the grand final, at an event with US$1,250,000 in total winnings. The organizer gave the event's peak audience as 1,370,524 viewers, citing the viewership firm Esports Charts.

Esports Insider describes Krakow as ESL FACEIT Group's first tier-one tournament of the year, tier one being the top level of competition. The two-year agreement was announced 18 days after the Krakow grand final.

The 2026 events on the calendar

The first event covered by the new terms is only days away. ESL Pro League Season 23 is the first of the four seasons in the agreement, and the rest of the first half of the year is already set.

IEM Rio carries a particular stake. ESL FACEIT Group's Krakow report said the win there brought Vitality closer to the US$1,000,000 bonus of ESL Grand Slam VI, which the team could complete at IEM Rio from April 13 to 16. The Cologne Major in June is the first Major covered by the new deal.

ESL Pro League Season 23 opens the deal

Season 23 shows what a single season of the agreement involves. According to HLTV's preview of February 27, 24 teams take part. Stage 1, played online from March 1 to 5, gathers 16 teams in a Swiss format, a system in which teams with the same record meet each other round after round, with one new round played each day until eight of them have qualified.

Stage 2, also online, runs from March 6 to 10. The eight qualifiers from Stage 1 join eight teams invited directly: FURIA, MOUZ, Team Spirit, Natus Vincere, The MongolZ, FaZe, Aurora and B8. Matches are best-of-three, meaning the first team to win two maps takes the series. The best eight move on to the finals, played on LAN in Stockholm from March 13 to 15. The playoff bracket is single elimination from the quarterfinals, with best-of-three matches, a third-place decider, and a best-of-five grand final.

The season distributes US$1,000,000. HLTV splits it into US$39,000 for Stage 1, US$185,000 for Stage 2 and US$776,000 for the finals. The winner receives US$100,000 in prize money plus a club share of US$150,000, a payment the organizer makes to the organization alongside the prize money. The runner-up receives US$55,000 plus US$101,500, and the four teams that lose in the quarterfinals receive US$15,000 plus US$33,000 each.

The same pattern repeats for the seasons that follow. Season 24 is the second of 2026 in The Esports Advocate's list, and Seasons 25 and 26 complete the agreement in 2027. Neither outlet gave dates for them.

ZOWIE's other deals in the game

The renewal adds to a run of agreements the brand has signed with tournament organizers. Esports Insider's January report traced them. In 2023 ZOWIE became monitor partner of the Valorant Champions Tour in the Pacific and Americas regions. In 2024 it supplied XL2566K monitors for the PGL Counter-Strike 2 Major in Copenhagen. In 2025 it was monitor partner of the StarLadder Budapest Major in November, and it entered a partnership with BLAST for the 2025 Fortnite Global Championship.

The brand also works with individual players. Esports Insider recalls that ZOWIE announced an agreement in February 2026 with apEX, the in-game leader of Team Vitality, the player who calls the team's tactics during a round, and a four-time Major winner. He is to help with product development and to take part in sports science testing. The same outlet places StarLadder among the organizers with which ZOWIE has a comparable peripheral deal.

Who the deal concerns

For teams, the agreement names in advance the screen they will play on at every IEM event and ESL Pro League season until the end of 2027. For the organizer, it fixes one monitor supplier across both of its Counter-Strike 2 circuits for the same period, and adds broadcast and venue activations for the brand at each of them.

ESL FACEIT Group is owned by Savvy Games Group, the games company owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, The Esports Advocate notes in its report. The agreement as announced covers the group's Counter-Strike 2 events.

The next date is March 1, when Stage 1 of ESL Pro League Season 23 begins online. The finals in Stockholm follow from March 13 to 15, then IEM Rio from April 13 to 16, and the Cologne Major in June.

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