ESL adds Kick for CS2 and Dota 2 and moves Challenger League there

Viewers of IEM Rio 2026 have had one more place to watch since Monday. ESL, the tournament organizer, announced on April 14, 2026, on the site of its ESL Pro Tour, that it has partnered with the livestreaming platform Kick. The announcement promises every minute of the Pro Tour in Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 on Kick, starting on Monday, April 13, with the first day of IEM Rio. It adds a second measure of a different kind: the ESL Challenger League, the organizer's competition for rising Counter-Strike teams, makes Kick its exclusive home.

ESL presents Kick in the announcement as one of the fastest-growing livestreaming platforms. The two halves of the text do not work the same way. For the main tournaments, Kick is added to the places where the broadcast already goes. For the Challenger League, it replaces them. ESL published no duration for the partnership, no financial terms and no statement from an executive of either company.

What the announcement says

The ESL Pro Tour is the name ESL gives to its circuit of tournaments, shortened to EPT in its own texts. The announcement covers the circuit in two games, Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2, both published by Valve.

For Counter-Strike, the text is specific. Coverage on Kick began on April 13 on a channel that carries ESL's Counter-Strike name, with IEM Rio. Future IEM tournaments and other Pro Tour events will be broadcast there in English, and ESL writes that other distribution platforms remain available for them. IEM stands for Intel Extreme Masters, the organizer's series of international tournaments.

For Dota 2, the text is general. The game is named as part of the partnership, but the announcement mentions no Dota 2 tournament, no date and no Dota 2 channel on Kick. It ends by pointing readers to ESL's Counter-Strike and Dota 2 social accounts for updates.

IEM Rio, the first tournament on the new channel

The partnership starts with one of the larger events of ESL's season. IEM Rio 2026 runs from April 13 to 19 in Brazil, with 16 teams and a prize pool of US$1,000,000, according to ESL and to HLTV, the reference news site of Counter-Strike.

ESL's announcement puts a second sum next to the first. IEM Rio counts toward the sixth edition of the ESL Grand Slam, a prize the organizer describes as a race across its tournaments, with an additional US$1,000,000 at stake. Team Vitality, the announcement says, are one victory away from it and could become the first team to win two Grand Slam titles in a row.

The first day went to the favorites. HLTV reported in the early hours of April 14 that all eight opening matches were won by the higher-seeded team. Vitality beat RED Canids 2-0, Spirit beat Liquid 2-0, Falcons beat 3DMAX 2-0 after trailing 1-9 on the first map, FURIA beat Passion UA 2-0 and Aurora beat HOTU 2-0. Three series went to a third map: G2 against Gentle Mates, Natus Vincere against B8 and MOUZ against Legacy, each won 2-1 by the first-named team. The teams are split into two groups, A and B. The second day's program, on April 14, listed eight more matches, among them Vitality against G2, Spirit against Falcons, a match HLTV said would decide a playoff place, and Natus Vincere against FURIA, whose winner would secure a playoff place from Group B.

The English broadcast is split in two. On April 8, HLTV published the list of ESL's broadcast team for Rio, with four commentators assigned to an A stream and four to a B stream, a desk host, two analysts and three reporters. The A stream has SPUNJ, Machine, JustHarry and Hugo at the microphone, the B stream Ne0kai, Skriv, HAzE and Trav. The desk is hosted by stunna, with Pimp and YNk as analysts. HLTV also mentioned a separate local broadcast in Brazil with four commentators of its own. HLTV's schedule for the second day shows why: matches are paired at the same hour, Vitality against G2 at the same time as RED Canids against Gentle Mates. The highlight clips in HLTV's report of the first day came from two ESL channels on Twitch. ESL's announcement names a single channel on Kick and does not say how the second stream is handled there.

The Challenger League leaves the other platforms

The exclusive part of the partnership concerns a competition with a precise role. ESL describes the Challenger League, or ECL, as the place where up-and-coming teams prove themselves. Its reward is a promotion: the champions secure an invitation to the next season of the ESL Pro League, the organizer's league for the top teams. Every Challenger League match will be found on ESL's Counter-Strike channel on Kick from now on, the announcement says.

Days after the co-streaming rules

The partnership arrives days after another text on distribution. On April 10, ESL announced its Co-Streaming Guidelines 2026, the rules for streamers who rebroadcast its tournaments on their own channels with their own commentary.

Those guidelines point in one direction for platforms. Co-streams are allowed on Twitch only. YouTube, TikTok and Facebook are named as closed unless ESL grants an express written exemption, and Kick does not appear in the text. Co-streamers must take the official English feed from a server run by ESL and may not capture it from the organizer's own Twitch channel. They pay no license fee, keep every ESL sponsor on screen and limit their webcam to 5% of the picture during play. The same text requires a co-stream to run continuously from the start to the finish of the broadcast, and caps overlays at 33% of the screen during desk segments, walkouts and interviews.

Read together, the two documents describe where an ESL match in English can be seen this week: on ESL's own channels, which now include one on Kick, and on the Twitch channels of approved co-streamers. The Kick announcement says nothing about co-streaming, and the guidelines have not been presented as changed by it.

Not the first agreement between the two companies

ESL is one of the brands of ESL FACEIT Group, known as EFG, and the group has dealt with Kick before. On April 17, 2024, The Esports Advocate reported a partnership between EFG and Kick around DreamHack, the group's gaming festivals. It was a different kind of deal: creators from the platform were to take part in panels, meet-and-greets and booth activities at four festivals that year, in Melbourne from April 26 to 28, Dallas from May 31 to June 2, Atlanta from October 4 to 6 and Stockholm from November 22 to 24. Financial terms were not disclosed then either. The same report described DreamHack as a division of EFG, and EFG as wholly owned by Savvy Games Group.

The 2026 partnership is the first of the two to concern the broadcast of competitions. The Esports Advocate's report of 2024 mentioned no streaming of tournaments on the platform and no exclusivity. For the 2026 partnership, ESL has published no figure.

Audiences that are counted

Where a match is shown matters to the teams as well as to the organizer. On March 9, 2026, HLTV reported the plan of another organizer, PGL, to pay teams, under its program for 2027 and 2028, according to the average cumulative viewership their matches bring, with a pool of US$2.8 million a year for the 16 teams with the most points. The site described the mechanism as similar to a scheme ESL currently runs. ESL's announcement of April 14 does not say how viewers on a newly added platform are counted in its own scheme.

What is announced next

IEM Rio continues until Sunday, April 19, the last of the seven days HLTV lists for the tournament. For Team Vitality, the week carries the Grand Slam as well as the trophy, on the terms ESL set out in its announcement.

Beyond Rio, the announcement dates nothing. It promises future IEM and Pro Tour events on Kick in English without listing them, names Dota 2 without a tournament, and says the Challenger League is on Kick from now on without giving the date of its next match. The points left open are the length of the partnership, whether the main tournaments stay on several platforms for its whole duration, and which Dota 2 events are included.

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