BLAST Premier to expand to 16 teams in 2024

23-12-2023 19:15

The tournament circuit is adding four new teams, who will become affiliate partners under special conditions.

The BLAST Premier circuit is expanding to 16 member teams for the 2024 season, HLTV has learned. The tournament organiser is welcoming four one-year affiliate partners ahead of the transition to a fully open circuit in 2025.

The decision to create an expedited membership process came after Evil Geniuses’ BLAST Premier membership spot was acquired by Cloud9 for an undisclosed fee. That bidding process “identified an overwhelming interest in BLAST Premier membership,” the organizer explained in a request for proposal document sent to prospective bidders.

The four new affiliate members will enter the circuit in time for the Spring Groups at the end of January and earn prize money from their tournament results. However, they will not be entitled to proceeds from the BLAST Premier’s revenue share system.

BLAST expects these four membership spots to be sold for a “minimum” of $350,000 each, with payments due in Q1 2024. BLAST added that, since it expects demand for the slots to exceed supply, proposals will be reviewed “based on the pricing offered and the payment terms.”

The addition of four teams, BLAST explained, “will deliver a refreshed and enhanced product into 2024.” It will mark the first expansion to the BLAST Premier circuit since it was introduced at the end of 2019.

In the last four years, however, the makeup of the league has changed considerably, with three slots changing hands. (Prior to the recent sale of Evil Geniuses’ slot, BIG purchased 100 Thieves' spot, and Heroic won the bid for MIBR's slot).

Valve to end team and tournament organizer partnerships starting in 2025

2024 will be the last year ESL and BLAST will be allowed to run a closed-circuit setup in Counter-Strike. In August, Valve announced that, starting in 2025, tournament invites will need to either follow its ranking system or be determined by open qualifiers.

In a statement released the same day, BLAST vowed to "remain an integral part" of tier-one Counter-Strike in this new landscape. “We are as excited as ever to continue to innovate the esports viewing experience and take our tournaments to all corners of the world.”

BLAST declined to comment when contacted by HLTV.

good

2023-12-23 19:16

5 replies

VERY VERY POG from 8 team blast finals to 16 teams, means almost open circuit in blast terms

2023-12-23 20:08

4 replies

from 8 to 16 to 0 in 2025 when valve removes partner slots kkk

2023-12-23 22:09

2 replies

i mean there will still be MAX slots per toruanment after 2025... JUST will be for example 16 slots with open qualifier for all 16.... LIKE MAJOR TYPE... meaning MAY THE BEST IN FORM WIN which is good

2023-12-23 23:11

Valve's ranking depends on money won in events. Blast can lift price pool for groups to elevate its members. So any early Blast and ESL events in 2025 even when using Valve's ranking will likely have exactly the same teams as now.

2023-12-24 12:32

it's the blast groups that will have 16 teams, not the finals

2023-12-23 23:16

I wonder if this means C9 got screwed by EG lol

2023-12-23 19:17

well since they bought a ''complete slot'' they will also get a part from the revenue share so who really knows

2023-12-23 19:18

They already got screwed with their squad

2023-12-24 01:44

furia needs to be on blast's tournaments

6 replies

mibr more than furia , deserve more

2023-12-23 20:09

he has fallen flair, he does not care about team performance or potential, he just loves whichever team fallen is in, like 90% of brazilians

2023-12-23 20:19

Mibr used to have a slot and sold it

2023-12-23 20:55

Best deal they could do, now the slot is worthless, imagine being heroic

2023-12-24 07:29

1 reply

Yeah for mibr it's probably good deal. But I suppose Heroic still will getting money even after 2025.

2023-12-24 10:33

furia kekw xD

2023-12-23 20:54

lessgo guys

lets goooo

2023-12-23 20:00

4 groups of 4. New people spirt mouz mibr furia

2023-12-23 19:19

15 replies

falcons instead of mibr

2023-12-23 19:26

10 replies

actual npc

2023-12-23 19:29

9 replies

cringe

2023-12-23 19:54

falcons has ence core so they are extremely legit

Falcons is backed by Saudi oil money, so they will most definitely buy a slot, as they have unlimited money

yeah Falcons is definitely a guarantee, the other three teams are a mystery tho. Although I think NRG might be willing to spend the money and get a spot, they need whatever they can get for the long term. Even if it means paying nearly half a mill with no returns.

2023-12-23 20:57

NRG was also one of the orgs I thought about. Don't really know if they are willing to just spend that kind of money to compete with a, let's be honest, mediocre / tier 2-3 team

2023-12-23 22:34

I mean, anything that'll help their CS team prepare for 2024 and then post-2024 in which we return to an open circuit.

2023-12-23 22:42

3 replies

That‘s true, but do you think that this team has potential to be a tier 1 team?

2023-12-24 11:13

if they make a few changes and find a new supertalent like prime Brehze once was, then absolutely.

2023-12-24 14:41

they need to change their mentality and attitude. cuz NA teams are like Prime C9 exactly they achieve something suddenly 3 players leave the team to join a worse team and their mindset is spending 90% the year in US which is not as good as EU for practicing and stuff like that but suddenly facing EU opponents which are coming from a much larger region in terms of pro scene adding large NA fanbase that makes things worse just like liquid fans everything happens they prepare to shit on org and players. imo these are the reasons that held NA back for almost 4 years cuz NA aimers like twistzz and Elige these kinda people are mechanically ahead of majority of europeans they just need to get used to the way EU cs plays and gain confidence. ( i know these 2 people actually succeed and twistzz is an exception but i still see some of those bad signs in em but way less)

2023-12-27 23:45

Falcons are definately getting one slot, maybe mibr out, they have already sold it in the past

2023-12-23 19:27

yeah most likely these 4 but -1 +falcons

2023-12-23 19:30

Might be VP as well

2023-12-23 19:35

If Ence don't get in I'd be surprised

2023-12-24 04:57

Blast HATE hltv?

why

2023-12-23 20:01

they decline to comment

2023-12-23 20:16

could be other reason

2023-12-23 20:22

well this is the easiest guesses of my life: ENCE MOUZ FURIA Falcons

2023-12-23 19:22

i doubt ence will buy it tbh

I would not be surprised if NRG buy a spot too

dont see why not, NRG need all they can get to prepare for 2024 and then 2025. And on second thought, maybe Falcons and ENCE may not bother since there’s no point.

2023-12-23 19:28

TSM when they first returned said they wanted to buy partner slots so they could come back

2023-12-23 19:31

god help us if TSM snags one of the spots

2023-12-23 19:32

tbh I doubt ENCE buying it teams I can imagine buying the spot are mibr, nrg, falcons, furia, maybe even fluxo I don't know how much BLEED is pretending to spend in cs2, but if they want I can imagine them buying it too

Falcons and mouz are the only guaranteed ones imo ENCE is a bit of a mess

2023-12-23 22:11

nah, on second thought, MOUZ might not want to bother. I don't think they're going to be willing to spend that much for something with no returns. If they were to pay high, it would only be if they wanted to buyout a player.

2023-12-23 22:17

I assume spirit will be in the race as well

my guess is Mouz, Furia, VP and Falcons (or Spirit)

2023-12-23 19:42

come on furia or mibr, lets get it

ENCE: i will be there no matter what

2023-12-23 19:23

EF should get that spot

2023-12-23 19:25

EF doesn't even have enough money to keep their Valorant and LoL teams

2023-12-23 19:49

Nah lol league was dirty and suck. ın valorant there are 0 tournaments per year kekw why they would waste money

2023-12-23 20:13

Valorant has a year long turkish league with the chance to get into VCT. Tf are you talking about? But #33 is right. EF are poor af

2023-12-23 22:16

Still doesn't change the fact that blast groups is the dumbest and most pointless event of the year. I would rather watch an open qualifier tbh. Cant wait for 2025 when that crap is gone. Also cant wait for this post to be deleted lol.

It's not pointless, the point is just to give the teams an inconsequential warm-up event at the start of the season.

2023-12-23 19:41

>"It's not pointless" > describes how is it pointless literally in the same sentence

2023-12-29 15:51

Blast should change the format of their tournaments, many matches are worthless... But if you want to aim for the TOP 5, you need to be part of Blast, otherwise you'll be far behind

2023-12-23 19:46

I think mibr and furia will get a spot, maybe NRG

If Furia doesn't take this opportunity, I'll give up

2023-12-23 19:33

Nouns M80 Wildcard NRG

2023-12-23 19:47

ence, mouz, Furia, mibr, falcons, virtus.pro, spirit, ef, Tyloo, movistar are possibilities

2023-12-23 19:51

forgot fnatic

2023-12-23 23:47

They could possibly be outbid by Heroic, Aurora, NRG, TSM, or many MANY brazilian teams, even a team like sharks have the financial backing to but a 350k$ slot. Luckily there are a lot of teams that can splash cash. I think falcons and mouz is clear theyll bid for these spots no matter what.

2023-12-24 14:58

Maybe EG is one of the teams buying a new slot

BLAST finally making their tournaments interesting? Am i dreaming? Also predicting the 4 teams: Team Falcons FURIA E-sports MOUZ NRG

2023-12-23 20:02

-NRG +VP or Spirit it would be much more interesting, I think

2023-12-23 20:06

Yeah but both Spirit and Virtus.pro arent the type of orgs to buy partnership spots, meanwhile NRG said they will try gaining experience through out 2024 and they are much richer

2023-12-23 20:12

Spirit already went against type getting shiro, I wouldn't be surprised if they go for this.

2023-12-23 22:44

maybe Spirit, don't care about VP though

2023-12-23 20:40

And just like that the falcons move make total sense.

2023-12-23 20:03

Get that last money grab

2023-12-23 20:07

jame time at blast

2023-12-23 20:17

according to KRL, the additional teams are: FURIA Gen.G NRG Falcons

>Gen.G What They dont even have a fucking team

2023-12-23 20:26

they are signing a Chinese team and BLAST are interested in expanding into the asian market afaik

2023-12-23 20:27

ye Im aware they're planning on doing that, just didn't think Gen.G of all teams would do this. Even then, who are they even going to sign, if they need aimers thats no problem, the IGL on the other hand tho... And yeah I think I've heard that too that BLAST wants to enter the Asian market, if their interest in the South Asian market wasn't of any indication.

2023-12-23 20:32

Chinese Geng.G ? They got into controversy involving China, Taiwan and South Korea.

2023-12-23 21:11

I don't think it would still deter them from doing this. And people have the memory of a goldfish, it'll pass.

2023-12-23 22:23

Good change, now have quarter final stage matches

blast last dance

2023-12-23 20:21

I hope some strong teams enter this format so OG and BIG stop farming free HLTV points just by beating weaklings like EG

2023-12-23 20:38

Hopefully Spirit is one of them

2023-12-23 20:43

I dont think they wanna spend anymore after they likely immediately scrambled to buy sh1ro out of C9 after they was announced that he chose to step down.

2023-12-24 02:10