The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) was a professional sports tournament organization specializing in computer and console video game competitions. It was established by Angel Munoz on June 27, 1997, hosting biannual tournaments in hotels. The CPL's World Tour in 2005 marked a global expansion of esports, but concerns arose about fan engagement and attracting new audiences. The post-tour era saw increased competition from the WSVG, and the CPL faced financial troubles including the loss of its main sponsor, Intel, to WSVG in 2006. Shortly after, WSVG's Matt Ringel purchased the 2006 CPL Summer event, leading to a decline in the CPL's influence. The CPL attempted a "World Season" in late 2006, hosting fewer events with reduced prize money. Rumors circulated about the league's health, and in March 2008, the CPL ceased operations. Later that year, the CPL was acquired by an investment group in Abu Dhabi, later becoming solely owned by WoLong Ventures PTE of Singapore. The CPL continued hosting annual competitions in China in collaboration with the municipal government of Shenyang.
SK Gaming is a professional esports organization based in Germany that has teams across the world competing in different titles. SK is particularly known for their success in Counter-Strike (CS) tournaments. SK's Brazilian CS team won the ESL One Cologne 2016 Major. SK currently has players and teams competing in League of Legends and Hearthstone. SK Gaming was founded in 1997 by a small group of Quake players in Oberhausen.
Johnathan Wendel, also known as Fatal1ty, is an American entrepreneur and former professional esports player. He made his professional debut at a 1999 Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) tournament, securing third place and $4,000. Wendel continued to compete in CPL events, claiming multiple championships and accumulating $110,000 in prize money. His success soared in subsequent years. Wendel won the CPL World Championship for Aliens vs. Predator 2 in 2001. He became a world champion in Unreal Tournament 2003 after winning the 2002 CPL Winter event. Wendel's achievements extended to Doom 3, where he became the inaugural champion at QuakeCon 2004. In 2005, he won his fifth world title in as many video game titles, after winning the CPL World title in Painkiller, securing an unprecedented $150,000 prize. By the end of his playing career, he had amassed an esports record of $450,000 in prize winnings.
Sander Kaasjager, who plays under the pseudonym Vo0, is a Dutch professional player of the first-person shooter games Painkiller, Quake II, Quake III , Quake 4, Quake Live and Quake Champions, as well as the MMORPG World of Warcraft. He has won the most titles and prize money from professional Painkiller tournaments out of all other players, having won over US$250,000.
Kyle Miller, better known as Ksharp, is a retired esports player who played Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike Source, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. At the peak of Miller's career he played for Team 3D.
MTw, formerly known as Team NoA, was a professional Counter-Strike team. Founded by Jonas "bsl" Alsaker, the team was regarded as the world's best several times, taking home many prestigious "trophies". They were the first professional e-sports team to consist of members from multiple continents when they formed the team from highly experienced players from Norway, Canada and United States. They were also the first e-sports team ever to pay for a player transfer out of a contract when they bought Ola "element" Moum out of his contract with SK Gaming.
This article lists the top four teams or players in each of the various eSports world championships of the 2006 season.
The 2005 CPL World Tour was a year-long gaming competition held by the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL). This competition took place throughout 2005, with a total of nine international stops and a finals event held in the New York City, United States and televised by MTV.
World Series of Video Games (WSVG) was an international professional electronic sports competition. It held its first season in 2006, with competitions in six different games and six events held around the world including the finals of the event. The total prize purse of the season was US$750,000 which includes the $240,000 prize purse that was winnable at the finals. The WSVG was operated by Games Media Properties, an American gaming company founded in 2002 with the BYOC Lan section subcontracted out to Lanwar Inc.
Fnatic is a professional esports organisation headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Founded on 23 July 2004, it has players from around the world competing in several games.
The 2006 CPL World Season was a series of electronic sports competitions organized by the Cyberathlete Professional League in the fall of 2006. It was a follow-up of the 2005 CPL World Tour and was announced by the CPL on July 1, 2006.
Mouz, formerly mousesports, is a professional esports organisation based in Germany. It fields teams in several games but is particularly known for its CS:GO team. MOUZ was one of the founding members of the G7 Teams. MOUZ's League of Legends team currently competes in the ESL Pro Series, having formerly competed in the European Challenger Series.
Yoan "ToD" Merlo is a French former professional player of the real-time strategy games Warcraft III and Starcraft II. In WarCraft III he played as the Human race and in StarCraft he played as Protoss. he was signed to the top esports team in the United Kingdom, Four-Kings, until 7 November 2007, when he decided not to renew his contract for unspecified reasons. He later explained in an interview that the dissatisfying results of the Four Kings team were the reason for his departure. After much speculation, Merlo unexpectedly joined the team Mousesports on 1 December 2007.
Ninjas in Pyjamas (NIP) is a professional esports organisation based in Sweden that is best known for its Counter-Strike teams. In 2012, the team reformed with a Counter Strike: Global Offensive lineup upon the release of the game. Aside from Counter-Strike, the organisation has teams in Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege, FIFA, Rocket League, Fortnite Battle Royale and League of Legends. They formerly had teams in Overwatch, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Paladins.
Joe Miller or JOEE is a British commentator. He started his career as an esports caster at gaming tournaments, working his first event shoutcasting Battlefield 1942. The 3D World War II first-person shooter (FPS) video game was coincidentally also the first game Miller played at a competitive level. At age sixteen, he began to commentate BF1942 games at home in the UK, pushing out as many audio commentaries as he could. In an interview with JP McDaniel, Miller revealed that it was a "big jump" from the audio commentaries he initially produced to the audio-video commentaries we are accustomed to today.
Patrik Lindberg, known by the pseudonym f0rest, is a Swedish esports player who is considered to be one of the best Counter-Strike players in the world. Having played competitively since 2005, Lindberg has been widely regarded within the esports scene as the greatest player in Counter-Strike history. Lindberg is best known for his four years of tenure on the Fnatic roster, which he helped bring to prominence as the dominant team of 2009, during which year the team broke the record for the highest-earning team in Counter-Strike history. Near the end of 2010, Lindberg left Fnatic and joined SK Gaming, which he remained with until July 2012. Soon after, he transitioned over to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and joined the team Ninjas in Pyjamas. In 2020, Lindberg left NiP to join Dignitas.
Alexey Yanushevsky, who also goes by the pseudonym "Cypher", resides in Minsk, and is a Belarusian professional player of the first person shooter series Quake. He has been actively competing in international Quake competitions since February 24, 2006. Cypher was most notably the first one to win the QuakeCon 1v1 tournament four times. He has been a champion of many other tournaments, including Electronic Sports World Cup, Intel Extreme Masters, Dreamhack and Asus Cups.
Wiktor Wojtas, better known as TaZ, is a Polish Counter-Strike 2 coach and former Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player, who is currently the head coach for G2 Esports. He is one of the "Golden Five" group of Polish CS players who won many tournaments with a number of different esports teams. He has played for Virtus.pro, AGAiN, Universal Soldiers, ESC Gaming, Frag eXecutors, Vitriolic, Wicked eSports, Meet Your Makers, and Pentagram G-Shock. Wojtas has been playing professionally since 2004.
Professional Counter-Strike competition involves professional gamers competing in the first-person shooter game series Counter-Strike. The original game, released in 1999, is a mod developed by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe of the 1998 video game Half-Life, published by Valve. Currently, the games that have been played competitively include Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (CS:CZ), Counter-Strike: Source (CS:S), Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), and Counter-Strike 2 (CS2). Major esports championships began in 2001 with the Cyberathlete Professional League Winter Championship, won by Ninjas in Pyjamas.
