Esports in May 2025 — industry news and updates

As part of our new monthly series of PRO articles, Esports Charts breaks down a month of esports action, all condensed into one article. This piece is your go-to stop for what happened in the esports industry throughout May, from news stories to event results and new records. May saw a myriad of esports events hosted in Dallas, Texas, where spectacles such as DreamHack and various other trade shows and exhibitions took place. Firstly, we’d like to thank the Esports Trade Association, which hosted the EsportsNext Industry Awards 2025, where Esports Charts won the Esports Innovation Award. Top news stories of May 2025 IEM Dallas opens with massive viewership growth, fueled by s1mple’s FaZe debut Highest earning CS2 teams TenZ returns to Valorant esports with Cubert Academy, and with his own POV stream of matches on YouTube and Twitch Americas, Pacific, and EMEA: Who leads VCT 2025 viewership ahead of Masters Toronto? Where to watch BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 — schedule, broadcasts, and participants May was a busy, busy month for Counter-Strike. The game saw plenty of the industry’s most popular event organizers host events, and there was plenty of ground-breaking news, such as Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev’s return. Before we dive into the details of Counter-Strike’s Spring renaissance, there’s a brand-new multi-game tournament series in the fray in Asia. Asian Champions League 2025 explodes onto the Asian esports landscape The Asian Champions League, or officially the HERO ESPORTS Asian Champions League, is a multi-game series held in China by Hero Esports. The multi-discipline span of the series gives it a feel similar to the Esports World Cup series in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which is co-organized by Hero Esports. Their new multi-million ACL series in China was held for the first time in May 2025. The ACL 2025 hosted the top teams from across Asia in games like Valorant, League of Legends, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and many more. Unfortunately, Esports Charts cannot track the viewership of Chinese livestreaming platforms, due to the unreliable nature of their public metrics. While measuring the viewership impact of the inaugural ACL is difficult, it could well become a stand-out tournament for fans across all of Asia in the coming years. Counter-Strike 2 enjoys Spring renaissance Valve’s shooter saw a fresh wave of viewership erupt in May, largely centered around third-party events, the return of s1mple with FaZe Clan, and the build-up to the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025. The three most significant Counter-Strike tournaments of May were BLAST Rivals Spring 2025, PGL Astana 2025, and IEM Dallas 2025. These tournaments are both in chronological order and order of peak viewership; BLAST Rivals Spring 2025 led the way with over 1.03M Peak Viewers (PV), and the other two tournaments both reached over 900,000 concurrent viewers. Legendary Ukrainian player s1mple finally returned to competition again, this time with FaZe Clan. The news of his return spread like wildfire around the community, with both new and old fans tuning in for his first match. Thanks to his GOAT status, s1mple’s matches in the Group Stage were more popular than the grand final of IEM Dallas 2025. Read also: FaZe’s matches featuring s1mple drew more viewers than the IEM Dallas 2025 grand final Unfortunately, May didn’t only bring good news for Counter-Strike fans. The ESL FACEIT Group officially announced that the Intel Extreme Masters series is moving on from Katowice, instead setting up shop in nearby Kraków. The Esports Charts team collected the entire viewership history of IEM Katowice in a report, as a send-off for a real piece of esports history. Dallas also hosted the ESL Impact League Season 7, the forefront women’s league for CS2. Women’s Counter-Strike received unusually high attention in early 2025 when Imperial Valkyries were invited to top events, and now, the ESL Impact League is reaping the rewards. Season 7 was the second-ever ESL Impact tournament to reach over 100,000 concurrent viewers, a feat which also makes it the most popular female esports tournament of 2025 so far. Valorant makes headlines around the globe May brought about the conclusion of the four International Leagues’ (IL) Stage 1 events. These tournaments usually set the tone for the rest of the year, and in 2025, the Pacific region sits on top. Viewership in the Americas fell rather significantly in 2025, and the EMEA region remains stagnant in terms of viewership. Soon enough, the action will kick off at Masters Toronto. The Pacific circuit is the most popular Valorant IL of early 2025, supported by a new wave of Indonesian fans who are tuning in to support Rex Regum Qeon, a legendary esports organization from the Philippines which has put together a roster with a core of Indonesians. Indonesian audiences are one of esports’ largest fan bases in mobile esports, and with Valorant slowly moving into the mobile gaming side of the industry, this could be a significant opportunity for Riot Games. Riot Games also announced a partnership with OnePlus to host the world’s first Valorant Mobile tournament. The event will be held in China, representing both Riot Games’ wishes to break into the mobile gaming industry and the Chinese market. Read also: Match-fixing scandal in Valorant Challengers North America: What’s going on? Over in North America, fan-favorite player Tyson “TenZ” Ngo dramatically unretired to play for Sentinels’ academy team, Cubert Academy, in the Challengers circuit. TenZ played the playoffs stage with Cubert Academy, and although they were unable to win a match, TenZ’s presence helped the North American Challengers league reach its highest peak viewership in two years. Around the same time as TenZ’s announcement, Shopify Rebellion’s tactical shooter GM Sean “sgares” Gares posted a cryptic video on X, alleging that the Challengers scene in North America was corrupt and rife with match-fixing. Ultimately, Sean did release a YouTube video uncovering people organizing match-fixing and offering players ridiculous sums to throw even just one map of a series. For now, Riot Games have confirmed they are currently investigating the allegations themselves. Other esports news MPL Philippines Season 15 reaches new viewership record for the region FNCS 2025 Pro-Am: Epic Games revives the format and scores big with viewers Team Flash's revival helps Arena of Glory Spring 2025 set new series viewership records BLAST Slam III continued series trend of peak viewers records, this time just below 300,000 concurrent viewers ALGS 2025 Open: Team Falcons triumph in front of 250,000 Peak Viewers PUBG Global Series breaks series record thanks to viewership rewards Reports and analyses from May 2025 Co-casting of Counter-Strike Majors: how impactful is it? Could the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 become the most popular esports event in U.S. history? Americas, Pacific, and EMEA: Who leads VCT 2025 viewership ahead of Masters Toronto? Team Vitality's acquisition of Bigetron Esports headlines roster moves ahead of Esports World Cup 2025 How Central Asia is building its place in global esports

Esports in May 2025 — industry news and updates

Detailed Esports data at your fingertips.

Newsfeed

Read also

Esports Charts