BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 qualifiers experience drastic viewership drop following format changes

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The Major Regional Qualifiers for the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 drew significantly fewer viewers compared to the RMR qualifiers for the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024. A combination of factors contributed to the drop in interest, including changes to the tournament format and broadcasting. Esports Charts took a deep dive into the data and highlighted several key reasons why so many Counter-Strike fans didn’t watch the qualifiers for the upcoming Major.

The most notable change was the overhaul of the qualification system: RMR tournaments have been replaced by Major Regional Qualifiers. The number of regions has expanded, and more teams from exotic regions could potentially take part in the qualification. For example, teams from Oceania and China have gained their own qualifications and no longer need to play against stronger rivals from Asia-Pacific.

Viewership Stats for the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 Qualifiers

These changes inevitably took a toll on the viewership numbers for the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 qualifiers. In total, the Major Regional Qualifiers generated just over 4.1 million Hours Watched — a staggering four times less than the RMR events leading up to the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024. Other key metrics also declined: peak concurrent viewership dropped by 68%, and the number of unique broadcast channels decreased by 23.8%.

Viewership took a sharp hit across the primary broadcast languages as well — peak numbers in English, Russian, and Portuguese dropped by 60% and more. The decline was just as steep on major streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube.

As expected, Europe was the most popular region during the qualifiers. The European Regional Qualifier peaked at 169.974 concurrent viewers, far higher than any other region, yet still lower than even the least-popular RMR event from the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024.

The most-watched match of the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 qualifiers was Astralis vs. B8 Esports. Interestingly, despite not making it to the Major, Astralis featured in all three of the top-viewed matches. All of the top 10 most-popular matches came from the European Regional Qualifier, underscoring the region’s undeniable dominance in terms of viewership.

The same pattern held for the most popular teams during the qualifiers. Astralis led the pack once again, with their matches averaging more than 67.807 concurrent viewers. HEROIC and B8 Esports rounded out the top three, each pulling in an average audience of around 60K concurrent viewers.

Interestingly, the Russian-speaking teams PARIVISION, Nemiga Gaming, and BetBoom Team are positioned only in the middle of the rankings, despite Russian being the top language both for average viewers and total watch hours during the European qualifiers.

Absence of top teams in BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 qualifiers

Last year, Natus Vincere, Team Vitality, G2 Esports, Team Spirit, and other top teams competed in the qualifiers for the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, all vying for a spot in the Elimination Stage. The qualifiers were full of drama and thrilling matches, and in a surprising turn of events, teams like Eternal Fire, Astralis, SAW, and Team Falcons were knocked out early.

This time, all the top teams have received direct invites to the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 based on their rankings in Valve’s Global Standings. As a result, the strongest (and most popular) teams didn’t need to play in the qualifiers, which led to a noticeable drop in both the quality of the qualifying rounds and the overall viewer interest in this stage.

For instance, in the European qualifiers for the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, the following teams secured spots: OG, Metizport, HEROIC, Nemiga Gaming, BetBoom Team, and B8 Esports. However, none of these teams are ranked in the top 20 on HLTV.org’s global leaderboard.

Different studios for different regional qualifications

In the past, the same organizer handled both the major tournament and the RMR qualifiers. This made it clear to viewers right away which channels would be streaming the qualification matches. For the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, however, the structure is different: BLAST is only responsible for the main tournament, while regional qualifiers were organized by other studios. For instance, the Serbian company RLG (Relog Media) managed the official broadcasts for the European qualifiers. Liga Ace Esports took care of the North and South American qualifiers, and ESN / Esports Network organized the streams for the Mongolian & West Asian and Oceanic & Southeast Asian regions. The Chinese qualifiers were handled by local companies GGMedia and B5CSGO.

With so many different studios involved, viewers naturally got confused: previously, the main matches of all the qualifiers could be watched on just two PGL channels, but now there are more than ten channels across various platforms. Last year, the Asia-Pacific RMR matches were primarily broadcast on Twitch (which accounted for nearly 75% of the total watch hours in the region). This year, however, qualifiers in these same regions are mainly streamed on YouTube, as the platform is a priority for ESN / Esports Network.

To put things into perspective, just compare the popularity of PGL's official channels with those of the studios that covered the qualifiers for the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025. PGL's official Twitch channel boasts over 1.9 million followers, while the Relog_cs channel has only 18.4k followers on the same platform. And this doesn't even factor in their social media reach, where PGL also holds a significant lead over its competitors. However, there is also a positive side. Some channels of these smaller studios set new personal records for viewership:

• relog_cs (Twitch) — 20.860 PV;

• RLG (YouTube) — 12.752 PV;

• LigaAceEsports2 (Twitch) — 5.868 PV;

Low community-caster engagement at BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 qualifiers

Since the qualifiers for the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 lacked multiple top-tier teams, many popular community casters for Counter-Strike barely covered this stage. For instance, during the qualifiers for the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, the well-known Russian-speaking streamer Vadim ‘’Evelone’’ Kozakov streamed nearly 40 hours of RMR A and RMR B matches. However, for the European qualifiers of the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, he only watched a single match between HEROIC and Nemiga Gaming.

There was also a sharp decline in streaming hours for other top streamers: the number of hours streamed by Mark ‘’ohnepixel’’ Zimmermann dropped from 30 hours during the qualifiers for the Chinese major to just 3.5 hours during the qualifiers for the American tournament. Some popular community casters didn’t stream the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 qualifiers at all, such as Igor ‘’SL4M’’ Sopov, Piotr ‘’izakooo’’ Skowyrski, Timur ‘’skywhywalker’’ Leonov, and Olof ‘’olofmeister’’ Kajbjer.

The new regions did not live up to expectations

The Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 had three main regions for the qualifiers: Europe, America, and Asia-Pacific. However, for the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, the number of regions was expanded: North and South America were split, and Asia-Pacific was divided into Mongolian & West Asian, Oceanic & Southeast Asian, and Chinese regions. On the one hand, this is a positive development because it has made it easier for some teams to qualify for the Major. Teams from more remote regions now have greater prospects and opportunities. On the other hand, their participation probably won’t have much of an impact on the overall viewership numbers for both the qualifiers and the main event. At least, we’re not likely to see that change anytime soon.

In the Mongolian & West Asian, Oceanic & Southeast Asian, and Chinese qualifiers, only four teams participated from each region. This led to fewer matches and a lack of exciting competition between teams from different regions. It's important to note that interregional matchups typically draw more viewers than local matchups, especially when those teams aren't from top regions like Europe.

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The BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 will be held from June 2 to June 22 in Austin, Texas, with the playoff matches taking place at the Moody Center. A total of 32 teams from six regions will compete in the tournament. You can stay up to date with the event’s schedule and results on the Esports Charts coverage page.