ESL Gaming’s Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) CS:GO tournament in Brazil will return to Rio de Janeiro with a $250,000 (~£209,000) prize pool.
It was announced last month that IEM would host another event in Brazil following the success of last year’s tournament. However, an exact location was not revealed until now.
IEM Rio 2023 will see 16 teams compete for the event’s $250,000 prize pool and a direct invite into IEM Cologne 2023.
Unlike last year’s event, the Brazilian tournament will not be a Major. As of right now, the only CS:GO Major announced in 2023 is the BLAST.TV Paris Major in May.
Alongside the participation of ESL Pro Tour partner teams and qualified organisations, Brazilian esports organisation FURIA has been invited to the event as a ‘local hero invite’.
IEM Rio 2023 will also contribute to the Intel Grand Slam. The Intel Grand Slam is a prize of $1m (~£837,000) awarded to the first team that wins four ESL-organised ‘S-Tier’ events within a period of 10 consecutive events.
Similarly to the 2022 Rio event, the competition will once again take place at the Jeunesse Arena. However, ESL has announced that the look of the tournament will be slightly different. Instead of having a centre stage, the layout will now adopt a front-stage format.
Last year’s Rio Major was the most viewed IEM event in CS:GO history, recording a peak viewership of 1.4m peak viewers, according to esports data platform Esports Charts. The success of the event led to ESL announcing another Brazil event in 2023, replacing the previously announced ‘IEM Spring’.