BLAST Premier dates and format revealed for 2023
BLAST Premier returns for 2023 with 345 hours worth of world-class Counter-Strike being put on in its fourth year.
Opening with Spring Groups in mid-January and closing with the World Final in December, BLAST Premier will be the start and end of the 2023 Counter-Strike season, with seven tournaments featuring throughout the year.
Both Spring and Fall Groups will exclusively feature best of three’s as the format for matches giving more hours of Counter-Strike than ever before. Group winners will advance directly to the respective Spring and Fall Final arena events. The remaining three teams in each group get placed into Gauntlet, the three winners of the Gauntlet also book their place in the Spring and Fall Final, whilst the losing six teams get placed into the Showdown events.
The BLAST Premier Showdowns throughout 2023 will be played online and will retain the same two regional tournaments: Showdown Europe and Showdown Rest of World. Rest of World will be played on North American servers, with non-North American teams being flown into the region for the Rest of World Showdown.
Hundreds of teams will get a shot at playing on a global platform thanks to the BLAST Premier Qualifiers.
Teams from all around the world will have the chance to qualify for the Spring and Fall Showdowns through regional qualifiers. These qualifiers will give teams from across the Counter-Strike scene a chance to play at the Spring and Fall Showdowns. Winning the Showdown events will take teams to Spring or Fall Final arena events - giving qualifier teams a chance to play on the BLAST Premier stage against tier-one opposition.
Charlotte Kenny, Managing Director of BLAST Premier, said: “We’re excited for what the BLAST Premier 2023 season has in store in its fourth year. 2023 will be the second year running where we have all of our finals in packed-out arenas in leading locations around the world. We’re excited to deliver another 12 months of next-level entertainment and follow up on the success of last year’s arena events in Lisbon, Copenhagen and Abu Dhabi. “
“This year, the BLAST Premier Qualifiers return, giving grassroots teams the chance to play at the highest level against the world’s best - with 14 regional qualifiers set to take place across the year.”
The BLAST Premier 2023 season will have a combined prize pool of $2,475,000 on the line across the seven events.
The same as 2022, Spring and Fall Groups will be hosted in a LAN setting without a crowd in BLAST’s Copenhagen studios, and the Showdowns will remain online. Spring, Fall and World Final will all be arena events with live audiences. These locations will be confirmed in due course.
The finale to the 2023 season is the World Final, and qualification for the $1,000,000 event will be intertwined with leading events throughout the year. Two teams are guaranteed to qualify via the “Race to the World Final Leaderboard”, with the remaining six spots being filled by winners of the following 2023 tournaments: BLAST Premier Spring Final, BLAST.tv Paris Major, BLAST Premier Fall Final, Valve Fall Major, ESL Pro League Season 17 and ESL Pro League Season 18. As with 2022, if a team were to win multiple of the following events, a spot will be added to the Race To World Final each time.
BLAST Premier 2023 Member Teams: Astralis, BIG, Complexity, EG, Faze, G2, Heroic, Liquid, NaVi, NIP, OG, Vitality
Joe Lovelace
Senior PR Manager
07779602441
joe@blast.tv
About BLAST We’re on a mission to take esports to the next level of global entertainment. We excite and invite billions of fans to join the esports revolution. We create live and digital experiences - from tournaments that pack out major arenas around the world to great content that’s guaranteed to blow your socks off.
We work with some of the world’s best game publishers and brands to elevate their properties into amazing esports experiences - having delivered tournaments, content and shows in a variety of games, including: Counter-Strike, DOTA 2, VALORANT, Apex Legends, FIFA 2022 and Fortnite. Over the last year, we’ve been working with Fortnite to develop industry leading, year-round, calendar of exciting and competitive esports events. Following last year’s FNCS All-Star Showdown and FNCS Grand Royale tournaments, we’re now operating the entire FNCS Chapter 3 broadcast schedule during each Fortnite Season for 2022.
BLAST Premier is a worldwide Counter-Strike tournament series where the best teams and biggest superstars fight it out for glory and a multi-million dollar prize pool. Famous for its unparalleled production quality and game changing fan-first moments.
Attracting tens-of-thousands of fans to our crazy-big-adrenaline-pumped live events in big arenas from London and Copenhagen to Miami and Sao Paulo, with millions more watching at home on our broadcast tuning in from more than 154 territories and in 25 different languages.
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