PGL announce new prize pool split for Bucharest 2025

28-2-2025 20:21

The tournament organizer has moved in line with the competition.

PGL have announced an updated prize pool split for their next tournament, PGL Bucharest 2025, set to begin on April 5.

The prize pool will remain at $1,250,000, the same as previously announced, but clubs will now take home 50% of the share.

PGL's previous model meant that clubs would receive a single payment, with the tournament organizer's CEO, Silviu Stroie, outlining their payment structure in a statement on X.

PGL have now moved more in line with BLAST and ESL with the adjustment. The two organizers began 2025 with similar incentive structures (BLAST's Frequent Flyer and ESL's Annual Club Incentive) and offered a much more sustainable model for clubs, meaning they were favored by the attending teams.

The Romanian tournament organizer has thus been forced into the change after several big organizations boycotted their tournaments due to not getting any revenue share.

Spirit, Natus Vincere, Vitality, and G2 were the biggest names missing from PGL's last event in Cluj-Napoca, with several other organizations also skipping the tournament in protest.

expected

2025-02-28 20:22

1 reply

i mean its a good move for the CS ecosystem. Both those count to VRS to my knowledge so why not?

2025-02-28 21:26

Good I guess

folded under pressure

2025-02-28 20:23

18 replies

no other option sadly, these big teams attending is crucial for the viewership and thus attracting bigger and better sponsors. and for us the consumers, nothing changes except we get even better events going forward

2025-02-28 21:04

17 replies

They could've just held out for a little while until VRS practically made it impossible for teams to skip their events as well, though

2025-03-01 00:48

16 replies

Since club share now counts towards VRS it's not as strong of an argument as it was before

2025-03-01 01:11

actually didn't know that

2025-03-01 01:47

No team is gonna risk this because they may not get to major what is gonna be a huge blow, this first year im pretty sure all teams are gonna tryhard until system changes or something else

2025-03-01 01:12

6 replies

well that is kind of what they were doing by skipping PGL events, but according to some other comments org incentives count towards VRS now so that would solve that issue for them.

2025-03-01 01:49

5 replies

Well recent change is skipping event is like placing on last place, so soon there will be a fixed system and you will see every year teams attending same events to stay up and will dodge more events that will be just calculated by the time, change made sence but it actually worsen the situation in my opinion

2025-03-01 07:52

4 replies

Where are you getting this info from? As far as I know, it only counts badly towards VRS if you accepted the invite and then you dont go.

2025-03-01 09:15

3 replies

I dont rly remember it was either desk, thorins show or hltv show but i heard this as a fact, it was the primary reason for a change, they pretty much made it so teams dont skip events to boost their VRS like imperial fe did

2025-03-01 09:30

2 replies

The change with imp fe is that they were in some qualifier events, but they forfeited their matches and it didnt have any implication on their VRS points. The change is now that forfeited matches count as a loss. With tournaments overlapping in 2027 onwards, it would be stupid to make a rule against skiping events.

2025-03-01 12:53

As i said previously in a year or so team will have planned which event they will attend and which they can just skip to get enough points, but this seems like we may see few top teams in 1 event and others in another, it may break the competition or fix it we will see

2025-03-01 14:13

how would that happen and why are you talking as if it's guaranteed

2025-03-01 01:32

if org incentives count towards VRS then it doesn't, but if you're operating under the assumption that prize money is the most imporant factor (like it was) then you're going to miss out a lot by bailing on 1.25mil events when there's teams that will grind each one out. especially if you consider that in the coming years events will start overlapping.

2025-03-01 01:48

that was the idea until teams like navi dropped 6 places after cluj and still decided to skip bucharest after the fact

2025-03-01 01:52

that doesn't make it an objectively bad decision, though

it does because if they don't incentivize teams to participate, they'll also skip astana and probably attend belgrade because it's next to everyone's bootcamp and PGL will have achieved the top 5 (or parts of it) attending 25% of their tournaments for 2025

2025-03-01 01:58

TO's can outlast org financially speaking, especially one like PGL. The implications of dropping VRS would be incentive enough to start playing PGL events at one point or another in the future.

2025-03-01 02:00

apparently they don't think so

2025-03-01 02:01

Volvo pls fix VRS(((((

I never gave a fuck about prize money, guess it means something now. Good change. Bounty system is not that interesting tbh.

2025-02-28 20:25

7 replies

If I understand it correctly, the orgs will receive more money because there is a difference between club money (which goes to an org) and team money (which is split between the org and players). I think it's a good decision from PGL and we might see the Vitality, Navi, and G2 in their events in the second half

2025-02-28 20:37

Havent invites already been sent for those events in the latter part of the year? I doubt they can manage to get all of the above with just the wildcard rules

2025-03-01 11:16

I don't think so. Invites are sent at different times (it is better to read the Valve rules), but it is usually 1-2 months in advance. It is not yet known who will participate in the tournaments in the second half of the year. For instance, IEM Dallas 2025 invites are based on ranking from February 25th.

2025-03-01 11:49

Qh my bad then, had something in my head about invites being sent almost a year before but i mustve confused it with another rule

2025-03-01 12:00

The tournament's placement should be announced a year before (for year 2026) and two years before for 2027 and further. That's why we already know about some tournaments in 2027 And i agree about that the rules are a little bit confusing because it's hard to understand the seeding for some tournaments

2025-03-01 12:06

honestly, I did not miss Vit, NAVI or G2 at PGL Cluj-Napoca at all. The event was great without them, it gave some smaller orgs the opportunity to play in front of a crowd and great exposure for them. It also led to some interesting matchups and eventually led to some upsets like EF and Faze losing to Falcons and Asstralis getting to playoffs. I really like that with the amount of tournaments available teams have to choose the events they attend and we dont see the same Matchups in playoffs again and again.

2025-03-01 13:01

Yeah, I don't say that we should see those teams every tournament and every time the same 16 teams, but I think it would have been perfect if we had had just a few of them. Of course, it is better for the scene because more teams will have lan experience and for more prestigious events, we will see more interesting and closer matches

2025-03-01 13:13

damn they folded

2025-02-28 20:29

Good but with this im afraid would be less top teams skipping this events and we would end up having almost same 16 teams at ESL , PGL and Blast events with few skips here and there to avoid burn out ... this is bad news for tier 1.5 -tier 2

2025-02-28 20:31

chill teams still need to rest, and blast and esl has other bonus struction, so they still won't attend all the events

2025-02-28 20:39

This shouldn't happen. Teams will (should) skip some events as they are just too many. In 2027 there will even be two "tier 1" event at the same time: hltv.org/news/40763/pgl-and-blast-to-run..

2025-02-28 21:00

an issue is that both ESL and Blast have safeguards against teams skipping their events: orgs that sign up for ESL revenue share can only skip 2 in a year and 3 in a 2 years period, and teams that refused a Blast invite lose all their "tokens" in their revenue share "frequent flyers" system. PGL will be the skipped tournament more often than not and just get leftovers.

2025-02-28 23:51

lmao at the ESL haters

2025-02-28 20:32

well it is still not dirty Saudi money

2025-02-28 20:36

it's russian oligarchs money. pick your poison.

2025-02-28 20:41

Talking about dirty money in 2025 *sigh*

2025-02-28 20:46

All money is dirty

2025-03-01 07:24

Does a change from $400k to $200k prize + $200k club share just mean players get half the prize money because their contracts are based on prize money not on club share?

Yes exactly. They do this to incentivize teams to attend as it ensures a bigger payout for the org

2025-02-28 20:40

but the old structure was 100% to the org, according to linked tweet?

2025-03-01 01:39

It was 100% to the team but the prize pool share between players and orgs is written in a contract, so orgs are forced to give the biggest part of it to players. Now orgs will get bigger part of it for their development

2025-03-01 02:59

Yes instead of orgs renegotiating contracts with players, they leave that to TOs.. orgs don't know how to run their business.

2025-03-01 09:23

ah, now i understand, thank you

2025-03-01 11:25

yes players get less

2025-02-28 20:50

Players get enough from salaries anyways , except tge big 4 most of the teqms dont get shit from players anyways

2025-02-28 22:38

the teams cartel won

>the biggest names >G2 what

2025-02-28 20:38

yea bro g2 isn't like one of the biggest orgs in the world

Even Liquid and Furia are big for this matter taking into account their following.

2025-02-28 20:42

well unlike those 2, g2 actually was a title contender in the last 4 years so that's it

2025-02-28 20:44

but this was never about "title contenders" This was about clubs with large following wanting incentives for providing their audience to the tournaments. Liquid (Club itself + NA) and Furia (SA) aren't pieces TOs want to discard.

W move by #1 TO

2025-02-28 20:48

Makes sense but its sad this has to be done instead of orgs just being competent and negotiating price money themselves

This is stupid tbh, i mean sure it doesnt really hurt the TOs as they would pay the same amount of money just split it differently, but its not the organisor that should say who gets the money, the clubs(orgs) should negotiate the contracts better. The fact that they didnt after 10 years of following the same pattern simply to me means that players are aware that they are bigger than a club and could win tournaments by themselves rather than having an org backing them up, they only do sign because of a stable income no matter the results rather than a club actually providing much

14 replies

The org pays for everything , so them getting 0% from pgl cluj lets say, its criminal AF from the players, orgs win nothing while spending in everything lets say

2025-02-28 22:39

13 replies

the orgs literally got 100% from pgl cluj the only problem was that their contracts with the players forced them to pay the players more than they wanted

2025-02-28 22:44

9 replies

Wdym they got 100%, lets sat mouz got 400k, so that 400k goes to the players only right, so the club and players share that? Lets say contract is players get 5% or whatever is 300k maybe , so org gets only 100k which is nothing compared to everything they invested in, maybe they spent 80k on everything includung salaries for that month and they get a clean 20k? Yeah right such a 100% win

2025-02-28 22:47

8 replies

the the pgl prize money gets paid to the org and the org distributes the money how it wants. the orgs made the retarded decision to pay huge salaries to players during the covid boom and they expected the boom to never bust. now they have no money and are forcing the tournament organizers to fix their mistake by alternative payment decisions and if they don't then they form a cartel and boycott the tournament it's 100% the fault of teams if this boycott worked then in the future they will keep making more and more retarded demands from tournaments until the ecosystem is fucked because of their greed

2025-02-28 22:52

Players get too much money anyways, prize money should go to orgs exclusively imo 100 % of it , atleast if we tslk about the salaries in the top10 teams

2025-02-28 22:56

Thats true, but this doesnt change my original post that tos only have to do this because the orgs were retarded for 10 years straight and have to fix their midtakes

2025-02-28 22:57

That should never happen, you're an old user dude, that goes against the very basics of CS as an esport.

2025-02-28 23:08

True, but noobs like w0nderful getting paid 30-40k per month even 20k to whiff on every event u think thats cool?

2025-02-28 23:19

He's not forcing anyone, tell NaVi to do something about it. Besides, you know they have S1mple on their bench even if his level is more of a question mark than anything. Even trying him out for a few months before his contract run out would be worthwhile for NaVi. Don't put yourself on the side of the businessman just because there's a face you don't like; they ain't here doing charity work.

2025-03-01 02:35

How do you think Teams should turn profitable then? In sports they have PPV but the Esports users are very against it. In dota they get like 10k salary but a cut of winnings, and in League they get massive salary but their tournament winnings aren't that high. So why should CS pro get both?

2025-03-01 09:33

I agree with your analysis, but keep in mind that T1 teams need incentives to recruit and keep their players If a team pays wayyyy better, the players will leave, same goes for the share of prize pool. And you can't expect EVERY team to lower the prize pool share or salaries, there always be a Falcons to pay infinite money for the best players So yeah, it's a decision from the orgs, but truth is : the power is in the hands of the players and orgs can't be too tough with them, they already struggle to force player to skip some events....

Ahm the orgs always gets the money, the fact they signed 0 brain contracts that say they get 10% of the prize pool is their problem and the reason TOs have to state who gets what part of the money. The players do get the money for stickers because valve rewards players not orgs, but other than that no, tos dont send each player a part of the prize pool, they send the orgs to split accordingly

2025-02-28 22:55

Imp players should get 0% of prize money and only 20-30% max of sticker value their salaries are too big for losing all the time

This has nothing to do with my original post, im not saying players should get all the money, the fact they do is because orgs are retarded and has been for 10 years. However the fact teams paid so much money for loterally no prize pool and pay ridiculous salaries means that players felt like there is no need to play for an org other than the salary so orgs gave up everything in order to sign the players. So i dont think players care much about orgs and they dont provide much other than salaries unlike football where u cant make it without the club, here u can play and bootcamp on ur own money basically

2025-02-28 23:00

Shame that the orgs managed to force them into this

2025-02-28 21:31

Its obvious, players getting salary, org pays for transport hotel everything, then again the players get everything from event, bit unbalanced no?

2025-02-28 22:40

The org doesn't pay for transport and hotel, PGL does press.pglesports.com/345840-pgl-cs2-2025.. Ctrl + F for "hospitality"

2025-02-28 22:45

So org pays only salaries but still get nothing in return from this event?

2025-02-28 22:48

They typically got 10-20% of prize money in the old system, depending on what they negotiated with their players which is gonna be different from org to org

2025-02-28 22:50

W change orgs deserve more money

Are they doing this in hope top teams attend Bucharest? Tbh I thought the invites had already been sent, but not announced to the people yet. Who knows, maybe no skipping this time then.

2025-02-28 21:38

late decision we won't see Spirit & NAVI in Bucharest

2025-02-28 21:39

Their loss, especially Navi's, iM will still be there signing hundreds of autographs

2025-02-28 22:27

Its studio anyways

It's just a studio event, sadly. We will have a big arena in pgl astana tho

Depressing. It makes no sense that each TO has to individually decide how much of the prize money orgs and players get. Would be way tidier if the prize money was just a lump sum and the orgs adjusted their players' contracts to get a bigger chunk of it.

2025-02-28 22:02

At least now we know which are the jerk orgs and unexpectedly, Astralis and Falcons are not amongst them

2025-02-28 22:28

Orgs are in their right tho, paying salaries, funding all the event (travel,food,hotels) and on top of that whatever the team wins , the players get, its kinda unbalanced for orgs , how are they supposed to be on a win when they literally had 0% in whatever it was

2025-02-28 22:42

TOs pay for lodging, practice rooms (typically), and travel. That's been a thing for several years now, I believe. And if that's incorrect, at least the major circuit does that.

2025-02-28 23:14

I believe all BLAST events and all majors are like that. Others i am not sure

Everyone does that, jjust that some have individual rooms, better hotels, better goodie bags than others, but at this point u cant not pay for accomodation because everyone else does it

2025-03-01 07:08

Kind of expected once Valve made the changes to the VRS. The only reason PGL went with prize pool was because that was superior for the VRS ranking. Regards

2025-02-28 23:03

Won't be watching anymore They sold out their morals

2025-03-01 00:42

Seems they were cornered by the top orgs

2025-03-01 09:40

And the "This is how things done over here. Do it like the rest or go away from here" approach won. In all seriousness though, does anyone else think that orgs depending on third-party saying how the money they receive should be split is a problem? And the orgs put themselves in that dependent position themselves as well. Well, I mean, looks like they have the power to force the TOs to do it, sure, but they wouldn't need to if they weren't doing the "100% of prize money is yours, guys. As well as $25k monthly payment".

2025-03-01 01:20

In that case the player goes to the other org, who provides exactly that. I think cat is out of the bag and it is too late to force players into worse contracts. So this way works.

2025-03-01 01:56

And in normal circumstances that other org would go bankrupt without third party making clauses in conjunction with them to bypass their own contracts.

this doesn't make any sense though? pgl's old prize pool was 100% to the org, according to the linked tweet, and now it's 50% to the org? why would orgs like the prize structure more now that they get paid less from the event?

2025-03-01 01:35

it was 100% players (depending on the org) most good teams have player contracts that stipulate majority of the prize winnings going to the players

2025-03-01 01:54

prize money was sent to the org, but the distribution was decided by what was signed between teams and players (most likely players are getting 80%+ of the money). Now orgs get a straight 50% on the top and the may be able to double dip and take another piece of the player's money as well. Well anyways after PGL talked a good game they backed down and orgs get a bigger share.

2025-03-01 03:02

gotcha, thank you

2025-03-01 11:26

If I was an owner of a t1 CS team I for sure would demand a big portion of the money won. There are no TV contracts (or of little value at least if they have it with Twitch), no big-ticket sales for individual teams, etc... Go play on your own if you want to be in charge. However, that's where a quality agent comes in and makes sure their client isn't getting ripped off. As an owner I would gladly agree to some sort of contract where we split 50/50 winnings from the TO and then they will receive another X% of the 50% I received. Point is I, as the owner, want to feel some, well... ownership of the product I am putting out there. Lets not forget... s1mple created himself but s1mple also didn't create the NAVI brand. It was already known and big... everyone has a part in this. Not just the ownership and not just the players but the players would also not be earning anything outside of prize winnings and whatever marketing deals they could find for themselves if they went independent. No salary.

2025-03-01 02:06