BLAST.tv Austin Major outshines VCT Masters Toronto across all key viewership metrics
North America clearly took center stage in the esports world this weekend, hosting two of the biggest tournaments of early summer. Austin, Texas, welcomed the BLAST-organized Counter-Strike Major, while further north, Toronto, Canada, held the second Masters event of the 2025 Valorant competitive season.
Both events ran concurrently, with some matches — including the grand finals — overlapping in schedule. The finals wrapped up overnight between June 22 and 23, Western European Time, and delivered electrifying, hard-fought showdowns filled with highlights and momentum swings. However, despite the excitement on both sides, the Counter-Strike tournament ultimately outshone its Valorant counterpart by a wide margin: not just in total watch time (which was expected due to its longer format), but also in terms of peak and average concurrent viewership.
Note: The statistics do not include data from Chinese streaming platforms or Steam.tv.
The action kicked off in Canada, where fans were treated to a nail-biting clash between Paper Rex, one of the top Pacific teams of recent years, and Europe’s current powerhouse, Fnatic. The final was a back-and-forth thriller, with razor-thin margins on every map. In the end, Paper Rex held their nerve and closed out the series 3:1 to claim the title.
Over in Austin, the Counter-Strike Major had already made history by breaking the game’s all-time watch time record before the grand final even began, surpassing a mark that had stood since 2021. The final kicked off with a crushing defeat for Team Vitality on the opening map at the hands of The MongolZ, but the season’s most dominant squad regrouped and took the next two maps, ultimately securing the second Major trophy in their history.
All things considered, the CS Major outperformed Valorant Masters across the board — despite the latter being covered on a slightly larger number of livestreaming channels. Notably, the Austin event peaked with over 600,000 more concurrent viewers, while its average audience was also almost 90,000 higher. Thus, one thing remains clear: Counter-Strike has reaffirmed its position as the leading esports shooter. At least for now.
Stay tuned to our blog as we’ll be sharing more insights on both tournaments soon. Several regional records were broken, and there’s plenty more to unpack.
