Esports tournament organiser BLAST has announced the dates for all of its upcoming Counter-Strike events in 2025.
There will be a total of six tournaments throughout the year, with the first one taking place in January and the last in November. Further details were not shared.
BLAST noted that the company aims to provide more details about the upcoming tournaments later this year, more specifically in June. Information on prize pools, locations and format will be announced during BLAST Premier Spring Final in London, taking place between June 12th and 16th, 2024.
As of right now, BLAST will host fewer Counter-Strike events than previous years in 2025. For comparison, 2024 will have a total of seven events and 2023 had a total of eight.
The new events will take place in January, March, April, two times in August (one ending in September), and November. This makes for an interesting change from previous years. In 2024, events will take place in January, March, June, July, August, September and November.
The changes to the competitive calendar will be affected by Valve’s new restrictions on the Counter-Strike ecosystem, which come into force in 2025 and prevent tournament organisers from having “unique business relationships with certain teams.”
BLAST has yet to reveal any details regarding the future of BLAST Premier — its semi-franchised partner league that appears to run counter to Valve’s new rules.
Andrew Haworth, VP of Ecosystems, Valve & Riot Games, said: “2025 is the start of a new period for Counter-Strike, one that we are really excited about at BLAST. Valve’s changes to an open ecosystem provide opportunities to create new and dynamic additions to our tournaments.
“Fans can expect an innovative and improved format that will keep the community on the edge of their seats, in the process creating more events, broadcast hours, matches and opportunities for more teams than ever before. We look forward to revealing further details in June.”
The BLAST events for 2025 will take place as follows:
- January 13th-26th
- March 17th-30th
- April 28th-May 4th
- August 4th-17th
- August 25th-September 7th
- November 10th-16th
