Credit: Joe Stephens / FACEITAt the end of last year the ECS Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league, which has an annual prize pool of $1.5 million, did something a little different. Many questioned the decision, sure some smaller events had tried similar things, but nothing on this kind of scale. However the inspiration to hold the finals in a location such as the Hard Rock Hotel in Cancún cam from an unlikely source. “I used to watch a lot of poker and there was, I think it was the first series of the World Poker Tour, I had it on DVD, and they would go to all these different stops around the world,” says James Bardolph, Creative Director at FACEIT, the company that runs ECS, and respected CS:GO caster. It was like, just wanted to do something different to everything else, because we don't want to be generic.

Source: Forbes April 29, 2018 22:30 UTC