The BLAST Austin Major 2025 has officially become the most-watched Counter-Strike tournament of all time, setting a new record before the grand final had even concluded. By the end of the event, total hours watched exceeded 76 million, surpassing the long-standing record set by PGL Major Stockholm 2021.

Hosted in Austin, Texas, the tournament was the first Major of 2025 and drew significant global interest across streaming platforms. The grand final between Team Vitality and MongolZ peaked at over 1.77 million concurrent viewers, with both teams setting personal bests for viewership figures, according to Esports Charts.

Team Vitality secured a 2–1 victory, marking their seventh consecutive tournament win. For the runners-up, though, thousands of Mongolian fans gathered across the country to watch the matches live, despite the final airing at 4:30 AM local time.

Viewership data was sourced from platforms such as Twitch and YouTube. Figures from Chinese livestreaming platforms and Steam.tv were not included due to methodological inconsistencies.

The updated top five most-watched Counter-Strike tournaments by Hours Watched is now as follows:

Esports Charts most hours watched counter-strike tournaments
Image Credit: Esports Charts

The final number of hours watched was 76,136,914. The tournament also peaked at 1,789,313 concurrent viewers, which was still some way off the 2.7m viewers achieved at the PGL Major Stockholm 2021.

Meanwhile alongside the BLAST Austin Major, in the same Texas city, Global Esports Industry Week took place, bringing together esports professionals from all over the globe. The event was run by The Esports Radar and ESIC, with Valhalla as a presenting partner and partnered with BLAST themselves.