2024 marked Counter-Strike 2’s first whole year of esports after releasing in late 2023. The new game has brought many changes to the format of the beloved esports shooter, and the changes to the title are not all found in-game. Developers Valve have announced various changes for the esports scene to bring the ecosystem closer to their vision for the game. This year, Counter-Strike has returned to its two-Majors-a-year schedule, and opened the door for Counter-Strike to experiment in the Chinese market.
Late last year, Valve announced tournaments must offer a path for teams to qualify for events through qualifiers, rather than event organizers inviting all participants directly. In the same vein, Valve have decided that franchised leagues are a thing of the past for their esports title; their decision stems from Valve’s stance that business relationships between teams and organizers are not how they envision Counter-Strike’s esports circuit.
While other developers, such as Riot Games, have embraced the franchised system for their esports league, Valve sees a potential conflict of interest here. The company behind Steam believes that competitive integrity is crucial for a healthy and exciting esports ecosystem, and that business relationships between teams and organizers could sour this. Their decision to move towards more open qualifiers in the future also backs the idea that anyone could qualify for tournaments, not only established teams with organization-backing.
While this is true, Valve also removed open qualifying events for North America and Europe leading up to this year’s Shanghai Major. The decision was faced with vocal criticism from both players and community figures, with some feeling this contradicts the company’s desire to make the game more accessible. Instead of open qualifiers, the Major utilized Valve’s official ranking system for teams, which is the only alternative available for event organizers in regard to deciding which teams to invite.
Throughout 2024, more than $20,000,000 USD were offered up in prize pools at Counter-Strike events, with a large portion of this total coming from third-party event organizers. While Valve has a reputation for their hands-off approach to the esports side of Counter-Strike, they appear to be taking a more vested interest in policing and guiding the esports scene.
Most-watched Counter-Strike 2 events in 2024
Ultimately, the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 was the most-watched event of the year. The tournament became the seventh-ever Counter-Strike tournament to reach over 50M Hours Watched and currently stands as the sixth-most-watched CS tournament in the Esports Charts database.
The event was significantly more popular than the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, which suffered low viewership from American and European audiences due to the event’s scheduling and time zones. Also, we are unable to include viewership from Chinese livestreaming platforms in our data, due to the unreliability and enigmatic nature of the publicly available data from these sites.
While the true viewership of the event among Chinese audiences is impossible to parse from the outside, Counter-Strike hosting their first Asian Major was a successful step forward towards entering the Chinese market. Counter-Strike is a franchise known all around the world as one of the world’s leading esports titles, and entering the few remaining untapped markets left is a clear way for the game to continue to grow and find new fans.
Aside from these Major events, the ESL Pro League Season 20 was the most-watched third-party event of the year. ESL is one of Counter-Strike’s longest-standing third-party event organizers, and their presence in Counter-Strike continues to bring around some of the most popular events for both players and fans alike. Their Pro League events enjoy considerable boosts to their total watch time thanks to the lengthy format of these seasonal events; ESL Pro League Season 20 was on-air for at least 50 hours more than any other tournament in our ranking here.
The IEM Cologne 2024 and IEM Katowice 2024 were the final entries to our top five ranking. These two events are two of Counter-Strike’s most historical event series: both of these cities have been long cemented as meccas of Counter-Strike esports. One tournament stood ahead of the rest as particularly successful in comparison to its own series: IEM Katowice 2024 was the most-watched iteration of the Polish tournament ever.
The Pro League and Cologne ESL events were less-watched than previous entries to their respective series, and viewership for the Majors this year did not increase either. Although Counter-Strike did not reach any new heights in regards to watch time in 2024, the ESL Pro League Season 20 became the most popular iteration in the series according to peak concurrent viewership. Considering this metric rather than total watch time, let’s take a look at what were the most popular Counter-Strike tournaments of the year.
Read also: ESL Pro League Season 20: new series record with rising YouTube viewership
Most popular Counter-Strike 2 events in 2024
Looking towards peak concurrent viewership instead of total watch time, the rankings were roughly the same. The one key difference is the ESL Pro League Season 20 made way for the other ESL events and a new entry to these rankings: the BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2024. The event was the most popular BLAST event of the year, and marked the power of their new BLAST Premier series which will host various third-party events for Counter-Strike in the coming years.
The PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 was the most popular tournament of the year, reaching over 1.85M peak concurrent viewers. The tournament enjoyed a boost to its peak viewership thanks to the success of NAVI, one of the game’s most popular organizations across the entire globe. The Ukrainian organization returned to the premiere level of the competition and claimed another Major championship title after triumphing over rivals FaZe Clan in the finals.
The Perfect World Shanghai Major was also closer in performance to the year’s other Major when considering peak concurrent viewership. Although overall watch time for the event was down considerably due to the poor scheduling for key Counter-Strike audiences, the event’s Grand Finals were nevertheless able to reach a considerably high peak. Generally, fans were more easily persuaded to wake up early to support the tournament’s Grand Final rather than its earlier stages: for more details and factors, visit our dedicated article covering the event’s strong final result.
Read also: How did the PW Shanghai Major 2024 draw over a million viewers despite challenging time zone?
2024 proved to be a landmark year for Counter-Strike esports, with the transition to Counter-Strike 2 shaking the boat of the game’s competitive scene. As the game evolves with new rules and formats, this year’s tournaments showcased the community's unwavering passion and highlighted the competitive scene's bright future.
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