ESL announces new Counter-Strike event in Katowice for 2026

7 July 2025

Since the first event all the way back in 2007, the Intel Extreme Masters, better known as IEM, has grown into one of best known and most successful event series in international esports. That is also why it came as such a shock to many Counter-Strike players and fans when ESL and Intel, the organizers of IEM, recently announced that they were replacing one of the traditional locations on the calendar, Katowice (Poland) to Kraków (Poland) from next year onwards.

Before the surprise had even been properly processed though, ESL and Intel made a new announcement in which they presented plans to return to Katowice in 2026 with a different Counter-Strike 2 event. Apart from that, the companies did not reveal much, so more information is expected over the coming months.

Return to familiar grounds

Katowice is a well-known name in the international Counter-Strike community. Since 2013, ESL and Intel organized a Masters in the Polish city every year and always at the same location, the Spodek Arena. The venue, which was Poland’s largest indoor venue up until 2014, sits between 8.000 and 10.000 people, depending on the set up of the event in question. For IEM events in the past, spectator numbers generally reached 10.000, especially in the later stages.
“When one journey ends. Another begins.”, wrote ESL in a short post on their own X account on July 7th, 2025, “Counter-Strike is returning to Katowice & the Spodek Arena in 2026.”

New Counter-Strike 2 tournament

Besides the venue, ESL has not revealed much more information yet about the new Counter-Strike 2 tournament that will be played in Katowice. The company did publish the Counter-Strike 2 calendar for 2026. A few weeks ago, they revealed the dates and locations for the four IEM events that year (Brazil, China, Kraków and the United States) that way, plus the date of another yet to be named event at the end of September 2026.

The interesting part here is that in earlier communications, ESL announced that Season 23 of Counter-Strike will end around the end of September. And that is not all, because the organizer also mentioned that the event will “take place in front of a live audience in an arena environment in Europe”. Combined with the recent reveal regarding a return to Katowice in 2026 with a non-IEM event, it looks likely that the “unknown” event at the of September will turn out to be the same event that marks the organization’s lightning quick return to the Polish city.

IEM will not return to Katowice

Another thing we know, based on ESL’s recent communications and reveals, is that the Intel Extreme Masters will not be returning to Katowice any time soon. ESL signed a multi-year deal with the city of Kraków to hold one of its Masters events there. That is not hard to believe if you know that in Katowice, the event generated in excess of $ 15 million in income annually in the past few years.