The BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 playoffs are underway for Counter-Strike 2 (CS2), and viewership is steadily increasing as the event progresses.
Esports Charts’ analysts believe the CS2 final could come close to attracting 2 million concurrent viewers.
According to the data platform, this would only happen if the perfect scenario for the final were to happen.
Esports Charts has researched to figure out what combination of teams in the final would likely draw in the most viewers.
The report simplifies the analysis to three different viewership scenarios, ranking from least to most favourable conditions for attracting a wider audience.
IEM Dallas major winners Team Vitality are on a historic win streak yet aren’t featured in the report.
British CS2 pro William ‘mezii’ Merriman and the team have won six consecutive major tournaments, which likely means their presence in the final wouldn’t have a big impact on viewership compared to recent events.
According to Esports Charts, the worst viewership scenario would be Natus Vincere (NAVI) versus Brazil’s paiN Gaming, which would be expected to draw between 1.1m and 1.3m concurrent viewers.
Ukrainian organisation NAVI don’t have as strong a Counter-Strike fanbase as they previously did.
And while paiN would attract the passionate and substantial Brazilian audience, their fellow compatriots FURIA are also in the bracket and are currently the more popular team, so PaiN’s following would be slightly less impactful.
paiN appear again in the moderate scenario, which would see them facing Russian organisation Team Spirit and draw in a predicted audience of between 1.3m and 1.6m concurrent viewers.
Spirit have consistently pulled the highest audience numbers at the Austin major for their side of the bracket, with viewers flocking to watch superstar Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets in action.
That’s why Esports Charts have also featured Team Spirit in the best possible scenario alongside FaZe Clan.
Only Team Vitality are higher than those two teams in the current outright winner odds according to our CS2 betting sites.
FaZe have been bringing in high viewership to the Austin CS2 Major as the world’s most popular team, largely thanks to their iconic pro Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyljev.
Analysts believe the match-up could bring in an audience from 1.6m all the way up to 2m concurrent viewers, which would make it one of the most-watched CS2 events in history.
Only the PGL Major in Antwerp 2022 (2.1m) and the PGL Major in Stockholm 2021 (2.7m) have broken the 2m barrier.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
