BLAST Premier’s CS2 competitions are set to expand in 2024, according to a report from Luís Mira at HLTV.
While there was speculation that BLAST might be struggling after Evil Geniuses sold their slot to Cloud9, the third-party organizer is set to expand the number of teams in Premier. According to HLTV, the new members are set to be added to the rotation as soon as possible, and the decision to expand was made after seeing the interest in EG’s slot. BLAST expects to snag a substantial chunk of cash per slot at a minimum of $350,000, per the report.
The timing of the expansion is curious. Every team that will be added to BLAST Premier will only get partnered for one year: In 2025, the partnered league system will be done away with entirely. Moreover, the reported slot value seems extremely steep for a one-year membership, which also reportedly won’t grant access to revenue-sharing.
BLAST Premier is the last non-Major prestige event in the CS2 yearly cycle that hasn’t been acquired by the ESL FACEIT Group. If it were to go away, the only prestigious league-style competition remaining in the calendar would be ESL’s Pro League. For tournaments outside of Majors, the loss of the BLAST World Final would see the IEM series, particularly IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne, become the dominant events on the calendar.
Valve values an open ecosystem for Counter-Strike highly. In a post titled “A Level Playing Field,” they outlined their reasons for returning the scene to its open roots. However, without the revenue from the business relationships gained from BLAST Premier, BLAST could be in financial trouble. If it were to cave, the entire calendar would be dominated by EFG, which might not be something Valve desires either. We’ll have to see how the business of Counter-Strike evolves in the new era, which begins in 2025.
