ESL One can take place in one of Stockholm’s largest arenas in the near future.
According to their new partner in the Nordic region, Clutch Entertainment, the ambition is to take the tournament to Sweden’s capitol early 2016.
– We are in talks with several arenas, and our dream is to have it in a big one, ceo Andreas Gillberg tells Aftonbladet Esport.

Last week ESL announced their plans to move into the Nordic region. Along with the esports agency Clutch Entertainment, one of their goals is to claim a stake in the Swedish market.

”In a very large arena”

And during the first quarter of 2016 they’ll make a big splash, as it is Clutch Entertainments ambition to host one of their flagship tournaments ESL One in the Swedish capitol according to ceo Andreas Gillberg.
– That’s our ambition. Our plan is to build the ESL brand from the grass roots and up. We’ll host GO4 cups and engage the entire country by online tournaments where everyone can compete. And we’ll look into a lot of games, but maybe the largest ones at first, he tells Aftonbladet Esport.

So there could be a ESL One for CS:GO in Stockholm next year?
– That would be fantastic.

Where?
– We are in talks with several arenas, and our dream is to have it in a very big one.
– ESL is a very professional company and they handle their negotiations by themselves, even if we are involved in our own corner. Our role is to get Swedish gamers engaged with ESL, and build up the interest towards ESL:s brand. We want to reach out to the grass roots and I have already identified several people I want to work with regarding this. Turtle Entertainment and ESL handle the ’top level’ negotiations with different arena companies because in the end it is they who have to ship the production equipment that is needed to arrange these events. Our job is to get people to the events.

”Will never discuss negotiations”

In the larger Stockholm area there are a couple of possible arenas, like the 16 000 seater Ericsson Globe where DreamHack has hosted events in the past, but also larger arenas like 30-40 000 seater Tele2 and the national arena Friends with a capacity of 50-65 000.
– Clutch Entertainment are in conversation with several arenas.

When contacted by Aftonbladet Esport, Friends Arena are hesitant to disclose any information about unannounced events.
– We’re looking at a lot of different events but will never discuss negotiations no matter what genre it is in, Commercial Director Martin Englund tells Aftonbladet Esport.

”Excited to get started with preparations”

Aftonbladet Esport has reached out to ESL for a comment about a possible ESL One event in Stockholm but the company has not yet replied. In a press release from last week they hinted about the possibility of IEM- and ESL One events in the Nordic region.
“We’ve been to America, Asia and all around Europe with ESL, Intel Extreme Masters and ESL One but, so far, rarely to the Nordic region. We’re all very excited to get started with preparations and look forward to a fruitful partnership with Clutch Entertainment.” said Heinrich Zetlmayer, Managing Director at ESL. 

The agents of several big CS:GO-profiles

Clutch Entertainment began their operations as a agency. The company represents several famous CS:GO players and profiles. Along the way, Clutch Entertainment have switched their focus and today work with some of the biggest companies in the esports scene. Something that Andreas Gillberg now elaborates on:
– I can’t say that we have changed our business plan, but when we started out we knew that a lot of teams and strong brands were without any representation and we thought that’s a great way to start. When you begin a travel like this you don’t know where you will land. We did some great promotion with for example Ninjas in Pyjamas who received their own bus together with Swebus.
– The one thing that made us change our focus was that we realized that we do most of our promotion campaigns by ourselves – from start to finish. We always want to have a great relationship with the teams, that’s a good thing to have, but Pantamera för Esporten was a concept that we could deliver from idea to a finished campaign and by then we felt that we can stand on our own feet and not just be somebody’s agent.

How did you guys come in contact with ESL?
– We had a meeting with them. The scene is fairly small, as in it easy to identify who are working in it. We met them about a year ago and they thought that our work was really interesting. We talked about what we could contribute with in the Nordic region.