Elisa expands its esports operations to the Nordic countries: Elisa Nordic Championship 2021 starts at the turn of the year

18.12.2020 - 11:59

Elisa is expanding its esports operations with local partners to Sweden, Norway and Denmark by organizing the spring Elisa Nordic Championship 2021 tournament on the esportal.com/elisa platform. Teams will battle for spots in Elisa Invitational and a total Prize Pool of $ 100,000, which will be distributed throughout the region in various tournaments. The game for Elisa Nordic Championship 2021 will be Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

The open qualifiers for each region of the Elisa Nordic Championship 2021 will be held immediately after the turn of the year 1. ‒ 3.1.2021. Group Stages will be played from January to February. In March, the regional league finals will conclude, from where the winners will advance to the Elisa Invitational in April from each region. The tournament can be watched on Elisa Viihde Sport’s Twitch channel twitch.tv/elisaviihdesport and all regional leagues will have their own local streams.

All leagues and matches within the Nordic tournament can be found at esportal.com/elisa. Elisa organizes various tournaments and competitions for the community and players on the platform throughout the early part of the year 2021.

– Elisa has done a significant amount of research on player behavior, and it has become clear that it is often difficult for domestic players to find a good company for gaming. At Elisa, we want to address this problem by providing players paths to international success, as well as quality community tournaments. Organizing the Elisa Nordic Championship 2021 is part of this work, comments Mika Lepistö, Director of New Business Development & Partnerships.

Elisa Nordic Championship 2021 in a nutshell:

4 qualifying leagues in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark
- All qualifiers and leagues to be played at the start of the year
- Finnish league will be played from 8.1. – 7.3.2021
- More information about the exact dates of the other leagues (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) will be announced soon
16 teams: 12 teams from open qualifiers, 4 teams invited
$ 100,000 Prize Pool, distributed across the qualifying tournaments
- $ 12,500 each regional league, $ 50,000 Elisa Invitational
Winners will qualify to the Elisa Invitational, to compete against 4 of the world’s top teams who are directly invited to the tournament

More information on the open qualifiers for the leagues:

Open Qualifier
- 1st of January 2021
  - Start time 17.00 EET
  - Single-Elimination bracket
  - 4 best qualify
- 2nd of January 2021
  - Start time 17:00 EET
  - Single-Elimination bracket
  - 4 best qualify
- 3rd of January 2021
  - Start time 17:00 EET
  - Single-Elimination bracket
  - 4 best qualify

Finnish league format:

Group Stage
- 4 x 4 teams groups (GSL format)
- Starting 8th of January
- 2 best teams qualify to playoffs
Playoffs
- Single-elimination playoff bracket
- 4 days, starting 4th of March

Other regional league details will be announced soon.