More than 1 million fans tuned in at the peak of BLAST Rivals Spring 2025

If you are like the best of us hardcore gamers, you cannot wait for the $70-million eSports World Cup to hit the ground running in Riyadh this July. But it looks like majors aren't the only tournaments getting the best spectators this year. The BLAST Rivals Spring 2025, running from the end of April to May 4, saw record numbers, both in viewership and prize money.

As per Esports Charts, the eight-team Counter-Strike tournament in Copenhagen finished on an unexpectedly high note for a non-major event. The eSports data firm confirmed that up to one million fans watched the Grand Final, in which Team Vitality defeated the Saudi Team Falcons.

The French-based Team Vitality won the top prize of $125,000 after clocking up just over 7 million hours. The runner-up walked away with $75,000 in consolation prize and was, unsurprisingly, the second most watched team with 6.2 million hours of viewing time.

Breaking CS viewership records at BLAST

The million-strong peak viewers did not just make Rivals Spring 2025 the most-watched non-major event by BLAST. It also pushed the tournament to the 16th place in the all-time Counter-Strike viewership charts.

It topped the viewership numbers for IEM Cologne 2024 (1.05m) and was close to matching IEM Melbourne 2025 (1.25m) and IEM Katowice 2025 (1.3m). For what was supposed to be just a stop on the Counter-Strike calendar, that's not that bad.

Most fans tuned in on BLAST's official Twitch and YouTube channels. Twitch pulled in 672,424 viewers at its peak, while slightly over 370k spectators on YouTube. BLAST.tv, Kick, and TikTok barely made a dent.

Viewership during the earlier stages was also worthy of a home call. About half a million CS fans watched Team Vitality's opening match against Wildcard.

Things escalated on Day 2. The Team Vitality vs. MOUZ match attracted almost 650,000 spectators. The Group B face-off between Team Falcons and Team Spirit brought in around 600,000 fans. The quarterfinals averaged 700,000 viewers, with the semis reaching over 800k each.

The map to victory for Team Vitality

Team Vitality arrived at Rivals riding high on a 21-match winning streak and fresh off a victory at the ESL Grand Slam at IEM Melbourne. The French org started things off with a comfy 2-0 win over Wildcard in their opening match. Their next test against MOUZ saw Vitality booking a spot in the semis with a 2-1 win.

In the semis, they faced Team Spirit in what many expected to be a close affair. But Vitality had other ideas, dismantling the CIS squad 2-0 with ZywOo putting on a performance that will go down in the books.

Then came the grand final against Team Falcons. Last week, at IEM Melbourne, these two teams had battled through a five-map blockbuster that Vitality narrowly bagged. History repeated itself in Copenhagen, with over a million viewers watching their five-map series.

Team Vitality won the first map, on which Mirage booked a score of 16-12. Team Falcons struck back on Inferno, handing Vitality its first loss on the map in 206 days with a 16-14 victory. The momentum shifted again on Vertigo, with Vitality going 16-8, but Falcons forced a decider by taking Ancient 16-13.

The final map, Nuke, was a Counter-Strike like no other. Team Falcons built up a 12-6 lead and seemed on the verge of finally ending Vitality's reign. However, the French team staged an incredible comeback and booked their fifth consecutive victory. ZywOo, Vitality's French superstar, took his 25th MVP award.

Prize money and sponsorship

As a BLAST premier event, Rivals Spring 2025 offers decent prize money to esports players. With $350k split between eight teams and two Frequent Flyers (FFT) tokens available, the prize pool was totally worthy.

The finalists bagged the biggest chunk of the $350,000, with Team Vitality taking $125k to Paris and the two FFTs (which guarantee them a share of the $2 m tokenized prize pool). The Saudi Arabian Team Falcons took home $75k. The 3rd-4th MOUZ and Team Spirit earned $40,000 each, with FaZe Clan ($25k), Wildcard ($25k), paiN Gaming ($10k), and FlyQuest ($10k) rounding out the list.

As far as sponsorship goes, BLAST partnered with a handful of brands and organizations. Banner sponsors featured Unilever's Knorr, men's health nonprofit Movember Foundation, snack brand Pot Noodle, and British chair maker Blacklyte. Other overall studio sponsors, Reliance and Alienware, beamed alongside Underdog and other providers of fantasy sports, sports betting, and online casino games, including those featured on this website.

About BLAST Rivals Spring 2025

For those who missed all the action, BLAST Rivals Spring 2025 was a five-day Counter-Strike 2 tournament held at the BLAST studio in Copenhagen, Denmark. The event ran from April 30 to May 4 and pitted eight of the best teams in the world against each other.

The tournament split the teams into two groups of four. Group A featured Team Vitality, MOUZ, paiN Gaming, and Wildcard. Group B had Team Spirit, FaZe Clan, Team Falcons, and FlyQuest. Each group played in a two-round elimination, with all matches played to a three-game winning streak.

The top three teams from each group moved on to the playoffs, with group winners heading straight to the semifinals. Each group's second and third-place teams had to battle it out in the quarterfinals. The playoffs used a single elimination format, with the grand final played to a five-game winning streak.