Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has purchased esports event organizer ESL Gaming and tournament platform FACEIT (thanks Sports Business Journal). The deal will be final approval has been fully certified by the law. Once the acquisition is approved, the plan is to merge both companies into the ESL FACEIT group, a new esports platform.
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund spent $1.5 billion to acquire both companies. While the company will be owned by Saudi Arabia, ESL CEO Craig Levine and FACEIT CEO Niccolo Maisto will co-lead the new organization after the merger is complete.
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ESL Gaming and FACEIT Merged Into ESL FACEIT After Saudi Arabia Purchase
A blog post from the ESL FACEIT website mentions the plan is to continue being heavily involved in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) community. They listed a number of their goals, including:
- FACEIT and ESEA allying to fight cheating even more effectively by sharing tech, infrastructure and data capabilities, and to provide better solutions to other tournament organizers
- Promote more stability for the NA scene through more incentives for professional teams, more operational and communication capabilities, and a richer schedule of competitions
- Support the development of local scenes by funding third party local organizers and by expanding our calendar of grassroots programs
- Keep investing in “path to pro” by providing the best up-and-coming players with new opportunities to grow and a chance to be put in the spotlight at professional events
- Rewards for fans watching all our CS: GO content via FACEIT point drops on both our own and official co-streamer’s channels
We will have more updates on the ESL FACEIT merger when they come in.
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