round won: https://youtu.be/ISoCbWBqsYI

CS has a scene which was built up for 20 years, by far the biggest tier 2-3 scene out of any other esport, CS probably has the best structure for growth imo

valve literally has 0 impact on events like esl, blast, pgl. Valve are only related to two events, the 2 majors. Valve's impact is just Valve Ranking System and the majors, That is it. And they easily get back what they lose on the majors via stickers.

probably korea or china, basically a core of international winning teams + a strong individual player

Franchising is ride or die, you either keep it or your entire scene is fucked. The reason why it was easy for cs to jump from franchising to open circuit is because it had several circuits, the main one being the major which remained fully open (unlike esl and blast)

I mean yeah? Which is why they shortened the number of teams in franchising from like 14 to 12 no? and why they will not add a 4th international LAN? Meanwhile CS can afford to have 30+ t1 events in one year so I guess Open circuit is better

I mean cs ecosystem is somewhat profitable, stickers allow orgs to exist, + bookies give finances for orgs to exist before that. Now almost every TO offers special programs for teams who choose their events so that they get a couple of millions just for attending
Like just this year all prize pool money combined reaches numbers north of 25 million dollars

I meant distance wise

asia seems way too big, how about 6 regions?

between Europe and Korea and China? So stretching from Iran to Japan? Seems crazy to me. I would say that you host open quals in underrepresented regions, as well as the main regions, and just force them to play. Sooner or later the scenes will catch up and we might get an OCE team, a MENA team, simply cuz they play with their competition

teams like rankers are one-offs imo, there needs to be a better mechanism to move up to tier 1 instead of ascension

but those won't come back, and the ones who are in will leave as well, sadge

and have a shit ton of orgs pull out, gg

it's mostly teams from tier 2. So we have seen teams like g2 hit the ground running almost immediately at franchising, right? Imagine if the leftover players, who got kicked from franchising last year, assembled tier 2 mixes, grinded quals and then got back into franchising. Makes up for a cool story, literally resurrected, back from the dead. CS' best intake is thru open quals, teams like passion ua or gamerlegion are essential to the scene cuz they bring new talent and serve as a transition bridge to tier 1. GamerLegion is a very good example
their fairy tale run at paris 2023 resulted in iM going to navi, where he became a top 20 player in the world and siuhy going to mouz, where he became top 5 igl in the world. Then they did smart business and next year sold fl4mus for a million to virtus pro. Now they got PR and REZ and they are a solid top 15 team in the world.
TL;DR Being an open slot, while not being guaranteed, allows you to get into tier 1 by just being good. You don't need to wait a year just to have 1 event to decide if you go or not. You get a chance to get at 4 international events, compete with the best, and maybe attract a bigger org to sign you

12 franchised slot + 4 open slots is the play bros

because cs doesn't have a league in the middle of events. You have like 5 different circuits:
ESL (Kato-ProLeague-Melbourne-Dallas-EWC-Cologne-ProLeague-Chengdu)
Blast (Bounty-Open-Major-Bounty-Open-Rivals)
PGL(Cluj-Bucharest-AStana-Belgrade)
Fissure events
other events

things projected to happen before c9 international appearance:
-asteroid crashes the earth
-trump term at the white office ends
-ww3 happens
-King Charles passing
-Earth gets submerged by the Sun

it depends on the year, mostly holidays start on the week of christmas

the likes suggest it was a logged in account which liked the translation = a.k.a a viewer

Germany? like the country with 80 million people? https://imgur.com/a/FRG8w8g

4.6 million likes versus 4.3 millions claimed WITH eu numbers as well. literally how is it more?

apac gets full korea representation with t1 gen.g and drx, sry

it is absolutely not tho? December 20ish is when Christmas holidays mostly start, like schools and unis (schools in EU were running til 23-24th december I believe)

ok, but then how do you get the viewership number? if champs had 70 mil index with chinese team actually winning and cs major had 52 mil without any sorta chinese representation wouldn't it still suggest that CS viewership was in the millions? It is of course, if we trust riot and their claim of 36 million viewers in China during champs 2024? did some rough maths, which might be completely wrong, but if I take the percentage of both index numbers and the viewership, CS major got around 26 million (52:70 multiplied by 36 million). IT was at least 4 million with the likes tho, so you say it wasn't multiple millions is nonsense

https://imgur.com/a/MCMGQUV
please explain the numbers, I managed to find it :) I would hopefully be correct that 4.6million likes means that there were at least 4.6 million chinese viewers, no?

I couldn't find it, but I remember it was a screenshot of faze-spirit and there was some sort of index with 52 million on the top right of the stream

if I search for screens I might find them bro, they were somewhere in my browser history, but I would then politely ask you to explain how chinese platforms count the views

what exactly is speculation? the growth of the game after it gets a worthy representative/representatives with TO's pushing to host more events in asia after seeing that China actually gives a shit about CS in Shanghai?

an arguement with an example which shows how other sport brands grow in other parts of the world
deflected with: copium
sad to see this nice discussion go down to just ''copium'' instead of worthy replies

no they wouldn't cuz valve doesn't do it for some reason, which I don't understand as well. CS2 recently had it's player peak which was 10k away from cs go all time peak yet valve haven't done or posted anything :D Riot does a way better job advertizing their product, twitch drops, tiktok ads, collabs, CS just doesn't do them for some weird god forsaken reason. and based on me ''guessing'', it's just predicting logical steps no? football popularity is massive in china AFTER tons of football teams had football tours in Eastern Asia, am I not correct? So how will having a developing asian scene, multiple tier 1 events in their country or time zone and an obvious marketing campaign from the teams and TOs not help Chinese CS popularity grow?

no wtf, chinese viewership is the biggest one of all, it's just that valve never actually ask the chinese platforms to provide the viewership number. Based on how the crowd obsessed over CS pros in Shanghai and Chengdu, I am sure that the viewership there is also multiple millions. Obviously not as big when let's say edg are playing, cuz they are patriotic. The reason why valorant has bigger viewership is cuz the game was advertized properly there, Valve haven't done it, which is why asia is riot's foothold. Thankfully, now with mongolz and tyloo (who might actually be good), asia has good representatives at the scene and thanks to the major expansion, there will be 5 asian teams at the major, which allows for more opportunities. Also afaik there will be a series of events hosted in china which basically plans that a chinese team will be top 5 and contending for majors in 3 years time. So i think cs will sooner or later catch up in that department, given that chinese major was a success, and an event before that in singapore was also quite popular there, I can see more TOs providing events in China(Chengdu in november 2025, CAC in october 2025,as well as a blast event hosted in eastern asia

Riot asks tencent and other chinese platforms to give them the number, therefore they can add it to their calculations. Valve haven't done so, albeit I have seen some screen that weibo had 52million interactions or some shit during the major but I sadly do not know how it is calculated

cuz valve never releases any stats, most of their posts is just updates, teasers and some random office fucking gifs.

1st I didn't say ''without chinese viewership'' as if china doesn't exist, I don't know how you got this idea? I used escharts as my source, they don't count china, cs got 2.7 million without considering china, therefore the number is higher.
There were reports suggesting that SHanghai got multiple million views on chinese platforms, sadly I can't find the screens.

it is, without CN it's 500k

''CS could never have a final as good as the Bangkok final '' IEM Cologne 2022, literally peak counter strike
'' reach VCT viewership'' pretty sure Shanghai was quite big at Chinese platforms, and Stockholm peeked at 2.7mil without chinese viewership (who adore both s1mple and niko), so this whole debate is fucking pointless imo

yep, absolutely for free.
so that means
zywoo - pretty much for free
apex - I am pretty sure his contract was either near expired or expireed
flamez - free
mezzi - around 300k I believe
ropz - free
just FYI fl4mus costed VP 1mil, electronic+perfecto to c9 was 2 mil

well I know the most about vitality (cuz I am a cs shill). it's just great business. Great sponsors, cool merch, and most important S-tier management. Went from a degrading fully french roster to a major winning team with dupreeh and magisk and spinx, then did not hestitate to remove dupreeh and add flamez (one of the best entries in the world FOR FREE). then when magisk got snatched by falcons signed mezzi for mere pennies and remained the most consistent team in late 2023-2024. Then they signed ropz, a franchise player of faze for FREE AGAIN! Sold spinx to mouz for great money. So now vitality have a Cologne-katowice winning core which cost them less then what some orgs pay for 1 player!

prx in 2025 is just Barcelona in 21/22

Atlanta falcons had a 99.6% chance to win the Superbowl 51. 0.4% chance got thru at the end. Enjoy the competition and don't look at stats so much

how could you leave out ''unless trash comes after zekken's name''

no fucking way, as if a final is meant to decide a winner and a loser of the event, not who is trash and who is goated

platchat has never been 100% serious analysis, they are just content creators whose entire purpose is to create content. They get a correct prediction = content, they get it completely wrong = even more content

I mean I guess number 3 tried to suggest katowice means less to the circuit because now it is like top 8 for prize pool, and given new VRS rules, katowice isn't as crucial as some PGL. as proven by the ranking adjustment after kato and after cluj. Although it is still top 4 prestigious events

just make it a one-off perhaps?
3 groups of 16 teams sorted thru 4 pots
1st pot - 1-3 from each region = 3 best champ participants
2nd pot - 4-6 = worst champ performer + 2 best regional teams
3rd pot and 4th pot decided based on last year's final standings
8 teams from each group, 24 play off teams, 3-0 teams + 2 best 3-1 teams (based on region strength last year) get a bye round
single elim, bo3s, grand final bo5.

afaik gentle mates are coming soon to cs (according to rumours they might get ash+siuhy and 3dmax core + find an awper). T1 have been rumoured about buying a brazilian team

I do not disagree tho, I am a CS shill myself. the reason why val has higher viewership peaks (and not even by a lot tbf) is because CS has way more events and therefore you don't need to watch every single event

average take from EU :D

what's the problem with an occasional hero play? greatest teams in all sports had to rely on some sorta individual brilliance to bail them out.

-kangkang
-smoggy
-nobody
-s1mon
-chichoo
+bntet
+dd
+somebody
+xccurate
+captainMo