By Sagar V. Mankar BLAST, one of the biggest tournament organizers, has recently unveiled the dates for its upcoming Counter-Strike 2 events in 2025, providing a sneak peek into the exciting changes on the horizon.
BLAST Premier Events 2025 Schedule
According to the official announcement, BLAST will host a total of six tournaments throughout 2025, kicking off in January and culminating in November.
Here’s a quick rundown of the scheduled dates:
- January 13th-26th
- March 17th-30th
- April 28th-May 4th
- August 4th-17th
- August 25th-September 7th
- November 10th-16th
Fewer Events, But More Excitement?
Interestingly, BLAST will be organizing fewer events in 2025 compared to previous years.
While 2024 featured seven tournaments and 2023 had eight, the upcoming year will see only six events on the calendar.
However, this reduction in quantity doesn’t necessarily translate to a lack of excitement.
What Will Be The Format?
BLAST has promised to unveil more details about the upcoming tournaments, including prize pools, locations, and formats, during the BLAST Premier Spring Final in London, scheduled for June 12th-16th, 2024.
According to Andrew Haworth, VP of Ecosystems at BLAST, the company is gearing up to introduce a new format that will keep fans on the edge of their seats.
Embracing Valve’s Open Ecosystem
The changes in BLAST Premier’s competitive calendar are directly influenced by Valve’s new restrictions on the Counter-Strike ecosystem.
New rules will end the semi-franchised partner team model which has been used by many tournament organizers like ESL and BLAST over the years.
These new rules will take effect in 2025 allowing existing contracts/commitments to be honored.
These rules are mainly based on 3 pillars here are they:
- Conflicts of Interest: Tournament organizers cannot have conflicts of interest or unique business relationships with teams participating in their tournaments.
- Team Invitations: All Invitations must use Valve’s ranking system or open qualifiers. (No guaranteed slots)
- Financial Transparency: All team compensation (prize money, revenue) must be made public and state thier objective
Valve stated the goal is to maintain an “open ecosystem” in CS2 esports.
- They believe that the top-level competition has become too closed off and gated by business deals.
- Ability should be the only limiting factor for a team’s success, not financial arrangements.
ESL has already announced thier plans to shift to revenue sharing with all participating teams from 2025 and now BLAST follows the same.
Additional Information – Official BLAST website