Why is New York the best place for CS:GO tournaments?
CS:GO is one of the most played and watched esports in the world. Its growth has been equally serious. Prize pools, viewership, and pro teams’ quality have shot up year by year.
But the pandemic staggered this progress, at least quality, and prize pool-wise. In the pandemic, many people turned to esports for entertainment. Unfortunately, the quality of CS:GO dropped, as tournaments were played online.
CS:GO scores became unexpected, and lower teams had unfair advantages. New teams emerged as winners, and the community started deeming them as “onliners.” Gambit and Heroic were two of them. Both of them proved that they were here to stay as they gained a 3rd-4th place at the recent LAN Major.
Though CS:GO results became more unpredictable, it wasn’t because low-ranked teams improved a lot to upset the old giants. They did improve but lags and pings that caused peeking advantages played a crucial role too. Of course, the pressure of thousands watching and cheering for or against you at LANs was also missing in online tournaments.
At the end of 2021, we saw a few tier-one tournaments played on LAN. The Major was the only one with a large-scale audience. Cologne was the first LAN after the pandemic, but without any audience.
There are not a lot of planned locations for upcoming tournaments as of now. Despite that, 2022 will be littered with LANs and fans and all the love the community has and deserves.
The Place To Be?
Perhaps one of the most loved destinations for CS:GO matches is New York. From the enthusiastic NA audience to the general beauty of the city, New York is an ideal place for the greatest CS:GO tournaments.
In S-Tier Tournaments, the grandest tournament held in New York in recent years, is ESL One: New York.
Having a recurring event in the city already deems New York as one of the staple names in the CS:GO world. Even cities like Kyiv, Malmo, or Moscow don’t have a permanent tournament host. New York belongs to an elite league of cities like Cologne, Sydney, London, and of course, Katowice.
ESL One: New York was introduced in 2016. It has been held four times, in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. It was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
But in just four years, it has grown exponentially, in viewership and in hours watched.
There has been more growth in Hours Watched for New York tournaments than the growth is in Cologne, Sydney, or London tournaments. New York is ahead of many cities on the list. It is ferociously competing against the city deemed as the Cathedral Of Counter-Strike, Cologne.
Today, Katowice is the only city that genuinely stands above New York. But as mentioned, the growth of NYC is greater than it is of the Polish city. Hence, it’s just a matter of time before New York topples Katowice!
Looking at the newfound passion and obsession of the North American fans, it’s easy to say that New York will soon become the host of a grand Major. The day isn’t far when the darling city of America becomes one of the best places for upcoming CS:GO events and tournaments! And New York has proved it with a lot of other tournaments in various esports disciplines
The Other Side Of The Coin
For travelers who visit a city from thousands of miles away, New York presents itself as the most ideal destination. It offers a plethora of things to do and places to be when the CS:GO matches aren’t being played. Be it exciting waterfronts, the delicious Chinese food in East Village, the exquisite local museums, the greatest concerts, the 640 theaters scattered in the city, the colorful nightlife, or the grand skyline, if New York doesn’t keep you entertained, then no city can!
CS:GO games are wonderful opportunities to explore new places and add cities and countries to your ever-growing list. And in that regard, New York arises as the most complete and enjoyable city to visit… and revisit!
From esports viewership and passion point of view to the general welcoming side of the city, New York is very quickly growing in the CS:GO community and will soon be the household name.
Embrace yourselves, New Yorkers, for soon, you shall have to bear the weight of leading the greatest esport in history!