ESL and DreamHack have been sister companies under parent Modern Times Group (MTG) since 2015. They’ve increasingly found ways to pool their collective resources towards a better, more unified product. Most notably, the ESL Pro Tour for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was planned to span global events across both brands in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.
However, at the end of September 2020, the companies announced that they had made this union official, merging under the ESL Gaming umbrella. ESL Co-CEO Craig Levine told Esports Insider’s sister brand, The Esports Journal, that the increased collaboration between the firms ultimately led to the merger.