Tournament:CEO
| Community Effort Orlando Series | |
|---|---|
| |
| Info | |
| Founded | 2010 |
| Region | United States |
| Format | Double elimination |
 winners
|
|
 winners
|
|
 winners
|
|
 winners
|
|
| Most successful player(s) | |
| Staff | |
| Organizer(s) | Jebailey |
| Website(s) | http://ceogaming.org/ |
The Community Effort Orlando series, or simply CEO, is an annual fighting game tournament series typically held annually in Florida by Alex Jebailey and CEO Gaming. The series is widely recognized as one of the premier events for fighting games and has held events for every Smash title at least once.
History[edit]
The tournament series began in 2010 in Orlando, with Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl as side events. The two games were dropped after CEO 2011, but Melee later returned alongside Project M on the official game lineup at CEO 2014, which also marked the first entry in the series to be a Smash major. Between 2014 and 2022, every tournament in the main CEO series had at least one event that reached major status, with some going as far as to reach supermajor status.
A notable change in the series was its location switch from Orlando to Daytona Beach in 2018 after Jebailey signed a contract with the Ocean Center. However, this switch prove controversial, as many FGC players chose not to attend CEO due to the perception that Daytona Beach's neighborhood was unfriendly. This likely had an impact on Smash as well, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic: CEO 2022 was the first CEO event since CEO 2015 where the event for the most recent Smash title was not considered a supermajor, while CEO 2023 marked the first CEO event since CEO 2011 where none of the Smash events reached major status. The contract was set to last until 2025, however Jebailey and the venue agreed to end the contract a year early, with CEO 2024 being the last CEO event held in Daytona Beach.[1]
The CEO Dreamland subseries is dedicated entirely to Super Smash Bros., and features all official Smash games as its only main events. So far, two Dreamland events have been held, one in 2017 and one in 2020. However, both events faced financial issues due to low attendance and COVID-19, respectively.
List of tournaments[edit]
Main events[edit]
| Event | Date | Attendance | Games |
|---|---|---|---|
| CEO 2010* | June 5th-6th, 2010 | 80+ |  
|
| CEO 2011* | June 10th-12th, 2011 | 60+ |
|
| CEO 2014 | June 27th-29th, 2014 | 262+ | 
|
| CEO 2015* | June 26th-28th, 2015 | 512+ | 
|
| CEO 2016 | June 24th-26th, 2016 | 1,488 |
|
| CEO 2017 | June 16th-18th, 2017 | 866 |
|
| CEO 2018 | June 29th-July 1st, 2018 | 1,091 |
|
| CEO 2019 | June 28th-30th, 2019 | 1,493 | 
|
| CEO 2021 | December 3rd-5th, 2021 | 777 |
|
| CEO 2022* | June 24th-26th, 2022 | 834 | 
|
| CEO 2023* | June 23rd-25th, 2023 | 730 |
|
| CEO 2024 | June 28th-30th, 2024 | 553 |
|
*Prior to CEO 2014, all Smash games were side events. In addition, Project M was a side event at CEO 2015 and Smash 64 was a side event at CEO 2022 and 2023.
Dreamland series[edit]
| Event | Date | Attendance | Games |
|---|---|---|---|
| CEO Dreamland | April 14th-16th, 2017 | 727 | 
|
| CEO Dreamland 2020 | March 13th-15th, 2020 | 970 |
|
Champions[edit]
Melee Winners [edit]
| Year | Event | Player | Tag | Character(s) | Runner-up | Character(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | CEO 2010* | Juan Debiedma |  |
| ||
| 2011 | CEO 2011* | Juan Debiedma | |
| ||
| 2014 | CEO 2014 | Adam Lindgren |   |
| ||
| 2015 | CEO 2015 | William Hjelte | |
| ||
| 2016 | CEO 2016 | Juan Debiedma | |
 
| ||
| 2017 | CEO 2017 | Juan Debiedma | |
| ||
| 2018 | CEO 2018 | Juan Debiedma | |
| ||
| 2019 | CEO 2019 | Juan Debiedma | |
| ||
| 2022 | CEO 2022 | Justin McGrath | |
| ||
| 2023 | CEO 2023 | Justin McGrath | |
| ||
| 2024 | CEO 2024 | Justin Hallett | |
|
* Melee was a side event in 2010 and 2011.
Project M Winners[edit]
| Year | Event | Player | Tag | Character(s) | Runner-up | Character(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | CEO 2014 | Gonzalo Barrios |   |
| ||
| 2015 | CEO 2015* | Forrest Griffin |  |
|
* Project M was a side event in 2015.
Smash 4 Winners [edit]
| Year | Event | Player | Tag | Character(s) | Runner-up | Character(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | CEO 2015 | Gonzalo Barrios |   |
 
| ||
| 2016 | CEO 2016 | Jason Bates |    |
| ||
| 2017 | CEO 2017 | Gonzalo Barrios | |
 
| ||
| 2018 | CEO 2018 | Leonardo Lopez Perez |   |
|
Ultimate Winners [edit]
| Year | Event | Player | Tag | Character(s) | Runner-up | Character(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | CEO 2019 | Leonardo Lopez Perez |  |
| ||
| 2021 | CEO 2021 | Kolawole Aideyan |   |
| ||
| 2022 | CEO 2022 | Carlos Pérez |  |
| ||
| 2023 | CEO 2023 | Samuel Robert Buzby |    |
| ||
| 2024 | CEO 2024 | Kolawole Aideyan | |
|
Smash 64 Winners (side event)[edit]
| Year | Event | Player | Tag | Character(s) | Runner-up | Character(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | CEO 2022 | Steven Rodriguez |  |
| ||
| 2023 | CEO 2023 | Ben Kesler |
Brawl Winners (side event)[edit]
| Year | Event | Player | Tag | Character(s) | Runner-up | Character(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | CEO 2010* | Akilade Akiwumi Daniel Rodriguez — — |
   |
— | — | |
| 2011 | CEO 2011 | Akilade Akiwumi |  |
|
* The top 4 players decided to split.
Trivia[edit]
- ESAM is the only Smash player who won a CEO event outside of Smash, having won Divekick in 2014.
References[edit]
External links[edit]
| CEO | |
|---|---|
| Main series | 2010 · 2011 · 2014 · 2015 · 2016 · 2017 · 2018 · 2019 · 2021 · 2022 · 2023 · 2024 |
| Dreamland | 2017 · 2020 |
| Other events | CEO Winterfest 2014 · CEO 2014 Prologue · Smash the Record · CEO Prologue 2016 |
- Tournament series
- Florida tournaments
- Nintendo-sponsored tournaments
- Regional tournaments (SSB)
- Regional tournaments (SSBM)
- Superregional tournaments (SSBM)
- Major tournaments (SSBM)
- Regional tournaments (SSBB)
- Major tournaments (SSBB)
- Regional tournaments (SSB4)
- Major tournaments (SSB4)
- Supermajor tournaments (SSB4)
- Major tournaments (SSBU)
- Supermajor tournaments (SSBU)
- Major tournaments (PM)
