BLAST Premier Expands to 16 Partnered Teams in 2024

BLAST Premier adds four partnered teams for 2024. Credit: BLAST

Denmark-based tournament organizer BLAST announced Friday that it has added four organizations to the BLAST Premier Affiliate Member Teams program for 2024.

The league dedicated to Valve’s Counter-Strike 2 esports welcomes Falcons, GamerLegion, Team Spirit, and Virtus.pro in 2024—joining existing organizations Astralis, Berlin International Gaming (BIG), Cloud9, Complexity Gaming and FaZe Clan (both potentially owned by GameSquare assuming the acquisition of FaZe closes prior to the official start of the season), G2 Esports, Heroic, Natus Vincere (NAVI), Ninjas in Pajamas (NIP Group), OG Esports, Team Liquid, and Team Vitality. Cloud9 takes over for Evil Geniuses, who sold its spot in the league to the organization at the end of 2023.

BLAST also detailed the format for the 2024 season. The 2024 Spring and Fall Groups will be expanded to 16 teams, with six teams advancing to the Spring and Fall Finals and 10 teams dropping to the Spring and Fall Showdowns. BLAST will add two Bo3 matches to each Group, increasing the prize pool to $190K USD for each Spring and Fall Groups. There won’t be any changes to the dates for the Spring or Fall Groups and there will be no changes to the Spring, Fall or World Finals, BLAST noted.

Finally, the BLAST Premier Showdown announced in November 2023 will feature 10 teams from the Spring and Fall Groups and six Regional Qualifiers that will lead up to a 16-team Showdown.

More details on other changes to BLAST Premier in 2024 can be found here.

This news follows the tournament organizer’s announcement on thursday that it had inked a multi-year deal with Epic Games to handle Fortnite and Rocket League esports efforts in 2024 and beyond.