Top Counter-Strike 2 tournaments of 2025

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Counter-Strike 2 broke records multiple times throughout 2025, with its most popular tournaments setting new expectations for what the esports tactical shooter can achieve. The halfway mark of the 2020s saw the the game update its competitive scene and bring in fresh ideas to generate stronger viewership and continue its growth. Take a look back at the top moments of Counter-Strike this year, the most-watched tournaments of the year, and the most exciting grand finals. 

For 2025, Valve released new guidelines for tournament operators, reshaping the CS2 competitive landscape. The new rules sought to have organizers more transparently plan their events to avoid conflicts, tie invitations to performance criteria rather than organizer discretion, and ensure tournaments may not have business relationships with participating teams. 

These changes also came along with new updates to the Majors, which were expanded to 32 teams and now rely on the Valve Regional Standings rankings for invites, alongside direct qualification paths. The expanded Majors are longer than their predecessors, giving the tournaments more time to stack up viewership and generate watch time. 

Later in the year, Valve also imposed restrictions on certain brand promotions at official CS2 tournaments. This includes the exclusion of skin gambling companies, case-opening sites, and similar sponsors; interestingly, this is the opposite decision to that of Riot Games, who recently decided to begin allowing betting sponsors in their esports titles.

Some of these changes and updates were controversial to fans, who were unsure how to feel about the new systems. However, 2025 recorded some of the strongest viewership results for Counter-Strike yet, and the industry is still thriving with the new regulations in place. Taking a look back at 2025, Esports Charts recaps the top Counter-Strike 2 tournaments of the year.

Most-watched Counter-Strike 2 events in 2025

The BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 was not only the most-watched Counter-Strike 2 tournament of 2025, but the most-watched ever. With over 76,110,000 Hours Watched, BLAST’s Austin Major became the most-watched Counter-Strike tournament of all time, by a margin of almost 5,000,000 HW. 

Read also: BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 became the most-watched Counter-Strike tournament of all time

The Austin Major was a significant point for the North American Counter-Strike scene this year, becoming the most popular esports event held in the United States, ever. It showed how the NA audience for the game is still strong and is waiting to cheer on more teams on their home soil.

Following closely behind, the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 recorded over 71,310,000 Hours Watched. It followed just behind the Austin Major, outperforming the previous record-holder and becoming the second-most-watched Counter-Strike tournament ever. 

With this, StarLadder’s 2025 Major was a successful return to top-tier Counter-Strike events for the organizer. While major-on-major viewership dynamics may have been in the red for the event compared to the record-breaking Austin tournament, it was still one of the top Counter-Strike events ever, and one of the most exciting esports events of the year. 

Behind the leading two Majors, ESL organized many highly popular events, as usual, throughout 2025. IEM Katowice 2025 started off the year strong, accumulating enough viewership throughout February to become the most-watched, non-Major Intel Extreme Masters event. Later in the year, IEM Cologne 2025 would build further upon this success, accumulating over 35,200,000 Hours Watched.

Read also: IEM Cologne 2025 boosted its average viewership by an impressive 54% year over year

The Katowice and Cologne IEM tournaments are some of the most highly-regarded third-party events in Counter-Strike. IEM Katowice 2025 was also a kind of send-off for the event, which will be replaced by IEM Kraków 2026 — Katowice is not entirely saying goodbye; the ESL Pro League Season 24 Finals will still be held there in October 2026.

Moving from standalone events to ESL’s league system, the ESL Pro League Season 21 brought a new, more open qualification system to the circuit following Valve’s new rulings. A new, tighter format was also introduced for the league, which saw many hours of broadcasting time cut down compared to previous seasons, drastically increasing its average concurrent viewership. Fans loved watching teams battle it out for the playoffs spots, and it recorded some of the strongest viewership the ESL Pro League has ever seen.

Read also: ESL Pro League Season 21 set a new series record for the average viewership

Most popular Counter-Strike 2 events in 2025

In terms of singular concurrent viewership peaks, the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 again topped our rankings, with 1.79M Peak Viewers. The American tournament was the most popular Counter-Strike event of the year, with the grand finals between Team Vitality and The MongolZ proving an electrifying match-up. 

Team Vitality also reigned supreme at the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025, raking in 1.59M Peak Viewers during their best-of-five grand finals against FaZe Clan. The recently rebuilt FaZe had to battle their way through the entire tournament, and coming up against the fresh Team Vitality, who arrived in Stage 3, they were unable to topple the French organization, who claimed back-to-back Major titles. 

Aside from these two Majors, there were plenty of million-viewer peaks in Counter-Strike this year. IEM Katowice 2025 broke records as the most popular non-Major event in Counter-Strike history, with 1.3M Peak Viewers for its grand finals between Team Vitality and Team Spirit — the French team was once again victorious here, but the Russian-speaking crowd cheering for Team Spirit was instrumental in the overall peak.

Read also: IEM Melbourne 2025 sets new record as Australia's biggest esports tournament

IEM Melbourne 2025 was also highly popular, recording 1.24M Peak Viewers for Team Vitality’s Grand Slam: a $1,000,000 prize awarded to any team that wins four S-tier ESL events within a window of 10 consecutive events. CS2 fans made sure to tune into this event, with Team Vitality’s potential on the edge of a Grand Slam helping it set the record as Australia’s most popular esports event.