Dota 2
CS2
BLAST have announced some ground-breaking new changes to their tournament structure and finances that look to put themselves at the top of the ladder.
We're not just repeating a PR line or anything there either, we're genuinely excited. There's a new tournament announced, improvements to what is one of the best formats in Counter-Strike (argue with the wall) and millions upon millions of dollars.
Let's start there.
$10m dollars is on offer to the teams taking part in BLAST events in 2027, which is good money if you can get it. Teams get money for every event they participate in, and then there's $7.5m on offer for placements and team payments.
That's one hell of an investment into esports, and one hell of a commitment. If there is an esports bubble, it isn't popping in 2027, if BLAST are to be asked.
$3m of that is in prize money split over six events, at an average of $500k per event. This will obviously scale up for the bigger events and scale down for the smaller ones, but it does give you an idea of the impressive scale of investment.
$10m. We're not sure we'll ever even see that number in our dreams.
October will see the return of Rio as a destination for a big Counter-Strike event, seemingly to the chagrin of most of the commenters, with many bemoaning that it wasn't in Sao Paulo, or at least some other city in Brazil.
The issue there is that the infrastructure for events in Rio in recent times is already in place and it makes planning an event there far easier, we imagine, and that is a big factor. These TOs aren't just picking Rio for vibes, though we're sure those vibes are immaculate.
This won't be until October, with three events having their locations entirely obscured before that, and the first only being labelled as within the Schengen zone, presumably for visa reasons. Rio is usually a fun time for events but we'd be lying if we said we were overly stoked to see another event there so soon after IEM Rio.
Now this one does excite us.
While the halving of teams is sad (necessary, but sad), Bounty is a super cool format that allows the underdogs to pick the team they want to challenge for a monetary prize. Going down to just 16 teams does limit the shenanigans of, say, EYEBALLERS challenging FaZe and beating them, but it would be costly to have 32 teams on site.
We get it, it's just a shame.
BLAST do mention that the draft and prize money mechanisms are changed and will be revealed soon, but we hope not too much has changed. The Bounty system was probably the most fun and unique event of the year, though this was amplified by the fact that the tier two teams had a shot at a big target.
We're tentatively excited, but excited nonetheless.
Hopefully ESL, PGL and StarLadder feel they have to one-up BLAST, and we're going to have a crazy 2027.