ESL today made the difficult decision to reschedule the ESL One Rio Major to November. This decision was backed up by Valve, who have said that the prize pool for the event will be increased to $2 million.

The event was rescheduled due to ongoing concerns about the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) which is taking extreme efforts from governments around the world to slow and stop. This is just one among dozens of changes esports has had to make to adapt to the new reality that we all are sharing in this crisis. 

"Our decision is an extremely tough one, but health and safety have to take absolute priority", said Ulrich Schulze, Senior Vice President of Product at ESL. "Given the very difficult circumstances for live events, we still wanted to give the Brazilian fans the CS:GO Major they deserve. We ask everyone to stay safe and we are pleased to be able to continue to deliver some quality CS:GO esports content to the community during these troubling times, while we prepare the Rio Major for November".

Teams that have already qualified for the event will have to be “reconsidered” at the time of the event, leaving teams that qualified like Complexity and OG out to dry.

This is the first time in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that the game has had less than two majors per year since 2013. However, due to the restructuring, the event will coincidently have the largest prize pool in CS:GO history at $2 million.

ESL has said that all ticket sales for the scheduled May event in Rio will be honored for the event in November in Rio de Janeiro. The dates and locations for the upcoming Minors have yet to be announced, with even invites for teams up in the air due to the length of time since the StarLadder Major. It will have been 14 months between majors at that point, but current rules would see the top 14 teams retaining a slot unless ESL makes a revision.