PGL announces 2027-2028 plans, including a detailed $22M investment

Yesterday, PGL released its detailed plans for CS2 in 2027 and 2028. Though PGL's share of tier-one tournaments has greatly expanded since the advent of VRS, they are looking to push it even further. The Romanian tournament organizer is scheduled to run at least six tier-one events per year, a significant increase from 2025 and 2026.

PGL announced its plans shortly after BLAST did the same, leaving ESL as the last big TO yet to reveal its roadmap.

PGL stated they would "continue to feature the traditional PGL format," adding that "the PGL format is the closest possible to the CS Majors format." As PGL has run all bo3 Swiss systems followed by eight-team playoffs, which is what Majors now have, this implies they will continue this format in the new tournaments.

In addition to more tournaments, PGL went into great detail on how the $22M will be used over the next two years. At $11M per year, $6M will be allocated to teams and players based on placement at individual events. $3M per year is prize money to players, and $3M per year is rewards for organizations.

The remaining $5M per year is distributed based on two models: $2.2M to the VRS invite bonus and $2.8M annual viewership incentive.

The VRS invite bonus is $400k for four events per year and $300k for two. That amount is divided between the top five VRS-ranked teams accepting invites to the event. Though teams outside the actual VRS top five can receive the bonus if teams decline, only teams in the top twelve are eligible. Any undistributed funds are added to the annual viewership incentive.

The annual viewership incentive resembles the system ESL currently uses. The average cumulative viewership (CCV) is calculated for each event, and the top 12 teams earn points based on their CCV rankings. Teams’ points go to a running count that gets multiplied by the number of tier-one PGL events attended. At the end of the year, the top 16 teams receive their share of the $2.8M.

While much of the 2028 calendar is undecided, PGL's current schedule for 2027 is:

• Event #1 (Schengen) Jan 17th-24th

• Event #2 (Schengen) Feb 13th-21st

• Event #3 (TBD) Mar 19th-28th

• Event #4 (TBD) Apr 16th-25th

• Event #5 (TBD) Sep 3rd-12th

• Event #6 (TBD) Oct 8th-17th