Cyberathlete Professional League

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Cyberathlete Professional League

Sport	E-Sports
Founded	1997
No. of teams	128+
Country	United States Singapore China Australia Chile Brazil Korea Sweden Italy
Current champions	fnatic (Counter-Strike) Paul "czm" Nelson (1vs1)
Official website	TheCPL.com CPLWorldTour.com CPLCast.com TheCPL.co.KR CPLNordic.com CPLChina.CN TheCPL.IT CPLBrasil.com TheCPL.CL CPLAustralia.com

The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) is a professional sports tournament organization specializing in computer and console video games.

The CPL holds tournaments throughout the USA, Europe, Latin America and Asia and hosts a variety of teams and players usually regarded as the best in their respective games. The CPL's tournaments are open to all registrants in the form of qualifier tournaments and invitations. Due to ESRB content rating concerns, CPL events are restricted to participants age 17 and older (with the exception of some "teen" rated games). However, a player can also register with a parental consent form at the age of 16.

As of early 2006, the CPL has distributed more than US$3,000,000 in prize money. The CPL's aim is to make computer gaming a viable competitive and spectator event, on the level of real, actual athletic sports.

In 2006, the CPL has announced the microprocessors manufacturer AMD as its lead title sponsor and ATI Technologies as a secondary title sponsor. The CPL is also sponsored by Pizza Hut, BenQ, Razer, Plantronics, Verizon, and Insomnia 365.

The supporting sponsors for the USA CPL events are: D-Link, and Steel Series.

The official Television Media Partner for the CPL is DirecTV, its On-Line Media Partner is GotFrag and its Documentary Partner is Cohesion Productions.

Main article: Cyberathlete Amateur League

The CPL also operates an online league (with live finals that takes place during CPL events) for amateur players and teams, known as the Cyberathlete Amateur League. CAL operates year-round, with regular 12-week seasons, one or two matches per week, and a single-elimination postseason (playoffs). In the case of Counter-Strike and other official CPL tournament games, the CPL uses CAL performance as a factor in seeding at its live events.

2006 - Paul "czm" Nelson - (Quake III)^[1]
2005 - Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel - (Painkiller)^[2]
2004 - Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager - (Painkiller)
2003 - none
2002 - Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel - (Unreal Tournament 2003)
2001 - Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel - (Alien vs. Predator 2)
2000 - Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel - (Quake III)
1999 - Mark "Wombat" Larsen - (Quake III)
1998 - Dan "Rix" Hammans - (Quake II))
1997 - Tom "gollum" Dawson - (Quake)

2006 - fnatic - (Counter-Strike)^[3]
2005 - SK Gaming - (Counter-Strike)^[4]
2004 - Team NoA - (Counter-Strike)
2003 - SK Gaming - (Counter-Strike)
2002 - SK Gaming - (Counter-Strike)
2001 - Ninjas in Pyjamas - (Counter-Strike)
2000 - e9 - (Counter-Strike)

Main article: Past CPL Winners

The CPL World Tour Logo

At the 2004 Cyberathlete® Extreme Summer Championships, the CPL announced details on its largest event ever, the CPL World Tour. This event took place throughout 2005, with a total of 10 international stops and a finals event held in the New York City USA and televised by MTV.^{[citation needed]}

Main article: 2005 CPL World Tour

The 2006 CPL World Season was a series of electronic sports competitions organized by the CPL 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^[5].

The tour featured two games, Counter-Strike and Quake 3. After a total of 7 qualifier events, the finals were held on 16-20th December, 2006 at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dallas, Texas. The championship finals had a total prize purse of $150,000 and were won by fnatic (Counter-Strike) and Paul "czm" Nelson (Quake 3).

Main article: 2006 CPL World Season

In mid-2006, the CPL together with its international partners announced a series of licensed divisions to bring worldwide the experience of the CPL events.