Today, the former CEO of the Ukrainian organization HellRaisers, Alexey "Magician" Slabukhin, sharply commented in his latest interview on the new rule from Valve, which prohibits tournament operators from having partner teams.

This move is more likely to kill the market than develop it, but for Valve, it's important to have control. Both tournament operators took control over the events market and left only the Majors for Valve, thereby also pushing other tier-1 level organizers out of the market.Everyone else simply can't offer clubs as much as BLAST and ESL. That's why Valve decided to step into the existing ecosystem and generate revenue. There were also rumors that Valve wants to promote their friends from PGL, as it will decide who to grant contracts for such leagues and tournaments.

Valve's stance:

To provide clarity, we'll include Valve's comment after they made this decision:

Counter-Strike shines brightest when teams compete on a level playing field, and only skills are their only limitation on the road to success.

• Tournament organizers will no longer have unique business relationships or other conflicts of interest with the teams participating in their events.
• Invitations to all tournaments will be based on our ranking system (details here) or will be determined through open qualifications.
  
• Any compensation for participating teams - prize funds or other rewards - will be made public and will be determined by objective criteria that can be verified by the community.
  

Since tournament organizers already have long-term commitments, these requirements will come into effect from 2025. There will be some challenges during the transition period, but we recognize the importance of the long-term health of Counter-Strike as a sport and look forward to its bright and open future.

How did ESL and BLAST react?

Ulrich Schulz, the Senior Vice President of ESL FACEIT Group, spoke about the planned changes to the organizer's tournament ecosystem – the event's revenue will not only be received by a limited number of partner teams but by all participants.

We will shift our model of tournament revenue distribution from individual teams to all participants starting from 2025. More detailed information will be revealed in the coming months.

Ulrich Schulz

Unlike ESL, BLAST wasn't ready to shed light on their plans regarding any future changes to their partner program.

BLAST Premier will remain an integral part of tier-1 CS in this new open ecosystem. We are more excited than ever to continue introducing innovations in the realm of esports viewership and host our tournaments around the world.As we enter the last quarter of BLAST Premier 2023, we will announce our 2024 schedule and look forward to 2025, continuing to update on our plans. We eagerly await the opportunity to share more information and updates with you in the future.

BLAST

In conclusion, one might say that indeed, Valve simply found their place at the feeding trough. But who knows, perhaps in time we might see more and more new tournament operators who, because of this rule, might be able to break the monopoly!