Fans Torn As ESL and RFRSH Clash Over CS:GO Tournaments
As RFRSH continues to push their BLAST Pro Series events, fans are beginning to speak out against the company. Unfortunately for viewers, RFRSH have partnerships with some of the largest CS:GO teams out there including Astralis and Team Liquid. This means that the biggest teams are occasionally having to skip competing in major ESL tournaments to instead put their focus on a BLAST Pro Series event.
We saw this happen recently at IEM Sydney, where Team Liquid emerged victorious, but with a pretty heavy asterisk next to the win. The reason? Astralis, the hands-down best team on the planet over the last 14 months, wasn’t in attendance. Instead, they were getting set to compete in a BLAST Pro Series event the following weekend.
Of course, teams have the right to compete or sit out any tournament they want. However, the move feels akin to the XFL buying an NFL franchise and forcing the team to compete in their league instead. Sure, they own the team, but no one wants to see them compete in the XFL. Whether it’s BLAST or ESL events, people just want to see the best teams competing on the biggest stage. However right now, teams are having to split time between two different tournaments and the fans are the ones suffering for it.
Source: DOT ESPORTS