IEM SYDNEY 2018--BIGGER, BETTER, AND ABSOLUTELY CRAZY

For the second year, Sydney and the Qudos Bank Arena* will host Intel Extreme Masters, the top-dog in esports tournaments. With insane fans and 16 teams comprised of the world's best Counter-Strike players, IEM Sydney 2018 will be epic.

Before the event, we caught up with Michał "Carmac" Blicharz, VP Pro Gaming at ESL, to chat about IEM and the history behind the event.

ESL: Let’s start with a small trip down memory lane - can you tell us about how you started at ESL?
Michał: I was a journalist covering esports for various websites and gained enough notoriety to be noticed by the biggest esports company in Europe.  I originally chose not to join ESL when they came knocking at the end of 2007 because I did not want to move to Germany. But the year after we sat down at the table again and agreed that I would join in 2009.

The interesting thing was that I was not being interviewed for the Intel Extreme Masters job but to actually run ESL’s website coverage. It was during the interview that I suggested I could help with storytelling of IEM and the CEO responded that he has a vacancy in the overall IEM job. Without knowing what I was getting myself into, I said yes. And here I am, almost a decade later.

ESL: And what about Intel Extreme Masters? How did IEM come to life?
Michał: That was obviously a bit before I joined, but ESL has been working with Intel Germany for 8 or 9 years before IEM was started. The relationship eventually resulted in taking the relationship to the next level and ambitions to create something major. That was Intel Extreme Masters in 2006 with big prize money, events across Europe and finals at CeBIT 2007 in Hannover.

ESL: IEM is not just a tournament circuit, it is also a long-standing relationship between ESL and Intel. Can you tell us a bit more about how this relationship developed over the years and how both parties benefited from it?
Michał: I think it’s a relationship built on mutual trust. It’s impossible to work together on something for a dozen years without it. We have been very flexible in making sure we meet Intel’s needs that naturally changed along the years. On the other hand, Intel had the belief in us and the respect for our expertise and had the bravery to go into projects like IEM Katowice which was the world’s first standalone event on this scale. Together we’ve managed to create some of the most meaningful pages in the history books of esports.

ESL: 11 years and 12 season later, IEM is the longest running pro tournament series, having created one of the greatest legacies in esports. What have been the biggest challenges with running IEM over the years?
Michał: I think the challenge has always been building the plane as we are flying it. There wasn’t a blueprint for esports back in 2007 and there still isn’t one for 2019. What works today needs to be changed and adapted tomorrow. That requires you to be extremely flexible and adaptive, and forward-thinking. It’s been both challenging and fun.

ESL: How about the best/most rewarding parts?
Michał: The rewarding parts have always been doing something magical. We’ve had many magical moments at IEM, ranging from a few hundred Brazilian fans going absolutely crazy to ten thousand people in Spodek chanting a team’s name. But that’s always when people react emotionally to what we’ve managed to enable.

ESL: If you had to pick only one IEM memory as one you cherish or remember the most, what would you pick and why?
Michał: It isn’t easy to pick out one single moment so I will take two. There was one moment in 2010 when one of the teams won a semi final that was an extremely intense game and started crying. I then understood that what we had built stood for far more than the prize money we were offering.  

The other moment was being scared that we wouldn’t fill the arena enough for the event to really make sense in Katowice in 2013 and then seeing it entirely filled up one hour before the show began. It was a true moment of insanity and a very tangible piece of evidence that esports has enormous potential.

ESL: What can we expect from the (lucky?) season 13?
Michał: No miracles. Just a lot of hard work, passion and, if we are lucky, fantastic moments at our events.  That last part is purely on the gamers and fans and how they raise the quality of the show we put up.

Tickets to IEM Sydney are available here.