2006 – Hosting the largest prize pool for a Counter-Strike event to date, the EPS Season IX Finals saw mousesports win their 5th ESL Pro Series Counter-Strike tournament and Dignitas earn the CS:S title. ESL also held its largest event spectator-wise with iFNG Oberhausen housing over 750 people to watch competitions across Counter-Strike, CS:S, Warcraft III and FIFA 09.

ESL’s rapid growth had now expanded to 1.3 million members. The Intel Extreme Masters had now replaced the ESL Counter-Strike Champions League (CSCL) and Counter-Strike events thrived especially. Sweden had achieved another European Nations Championship, German squad ALTERNATE aTTax claimed the title and lionshare of €30,000 at EPS Season VIII Finals over mousesports.

Teaming up with both Intel as a sponsor for the European side of ESL, Logitech also joined as the new sponsor of EPS (ESL Pro Series).