ESL Pro League Season 24 Playoffs (Katowice)

ESL Pro League Season 24 is the autumn edition of one of the longest-running Counter-Strike competitions, now played in Counter-Strike 2. For this season ESL FACEIT Group takes the Pro League finals back into an arena for the first time since 2019, and the venue is a familiar one: the Spodek in Katowice, home of the legendary IEM Katowice events.

Sixteen teams take part - twelve invited through Valve's regional standings (VRS) and four regional winners from ESL Challenger League Season 51 (Europe, North America, South America and Asia). They first play a Swiss-format group stage, with best-of-three matches, and the top eight advance to a single-elimination playoff bracket in the Spodek from 9 to 11 October 2026. The total prize money is 1,000,000 US dollars, and the event also counts towards the ESL Grand Slam.

For fans in Croatia and the wider region, Katowice is one of the classic esports pilgrimages and an arena weekend of tier-one CS2 is the best way to experience it live. Ticket details are published by ESL on the official event channels, so check there before planning the trip.

Image: Adrian Tync / CC BY-SA 4.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katowice_Spodek_E_aerial_2026.jpg