StarLadder Budapest Major 2025: Co-streaming share falls to 31%

Loading

Over the past few years, co-streaming has become an integral part of esports broadcasting. What started as an experiment has turned into a standard practice across major titles and tournaments. Co-casting helps events grow total viewership, adds personality to broadcasts, and in some cases even brings in entirely new audiences who might not engage with traditional studio coverage.

That’s why the 2025 Counter-Strike Major data stands out. Instead of continued growth, co-streaming’s share of total viewership has been declining, with the trend becoming especially visible at the StarLadder Budapest Major. So what changed, and why did co-casting lose ground this time around?

The numbers tell the story clearly:

• Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024: co-streamers accounted for 41.5% of total tournament viewership;

• BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025: co-streaming share declined to 37.9%;

• StarLadder Budapest Major 2025: co-streaming’s contribution fell further to just 31.1%.

The downward trend is clear. While the drop from Shanghai to Austin was relatively modest, the Budapest Major marked a far more pronounced shift, signaling a structural change rather than normal fluctuation.

The biggest structural change came from the Russian-speaking segment. Unlike the usual setup, exclusive regional broadcast rights were not granted to a studio, but to an individual creator: Ukrainian streamer Vadim “Evelone” Kazakov. As a result, there was no major Russian or Russian-speaking studio covering the event live. Instead, Evelone became the primary broadcast hub for the region, sharing no-delay streaming access with a limited group of fellow creators.

This had a direct statistical effect. Evelone himself, along with creators such as Max "shadowkekw" Pavlov, effectively moved from the co-caster category into the official broadcaster role. Given the size of their audiences, they generated enough watch time for this shift alone to materially change the overall co-streaming share. 

In fact, Evelone’s position in Budapest mirrored that of Alexandre “Gaules” Borba, who typically serves as the central hub for Brazilian Counter-Strike audiences and operates as an official broadcaster rather than a co-caster.

There was also a second, more straightforward factor. For the StarLadder Budapest Major, the organizer did not actively contract high-profile co-streamers to cover the event. As a result, familiar names that often boost co-streaming numbers at Majors, such as Michael “shroud” Grzesiek, were absent. Taken together, these decisions further reduced the volume of viewership generated specifically through co-casting channels.

That said, demand for co-streaming itself has not disappeared. Among dedicated co-casters at the Budapest Major, ohnepixel stood well above the rest, drawing an audience roughly four times larger than his nearest competitors. The top five co-streamers by peak viewership and hours watched included creators broadcasting in Polish, English, Russian and Ukrainian, highlighting that co-casting remains relevant across multiple language communities. The audience interest is still there, it was the structure around distribution that changed.

***

The decline in co-streaming’s share at the Budapest Major does not point to a collapse of the format, but rather to a broader shift in how Counter-Strike broadcasts are organized. Studio-based coverage comes with high fixed costs and increasingly questionable returns, while large individual creators can now function as primary broadcast hubs in key regions.

What has already happened in Brazilian and Russian-speaking Counter-Strike may not remain isolated. Similar transitions could emerge in other regions as organizers continue to rethink cost efficiency, rights distribution and audience behavior. For now, co-streaming is not disappearing, but its role is clearly evolving. This is a trend worth watching closely.