Almost two years after the cancellation of the ESL One Rio Major 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ESL Gaming has unveiled Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Rio Major 2022.
The CS:GO Major was announced by the popular Brazilian streamer Alexandre ‘Gaules’ Borba. The streamer will also have exclusivity as the cast of the Portuguese language for the competition, which officially begins on October 31 in Rio de Janeiro.
Image credits: ESL, @rustenico.
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The tournament, which has a prize pool of $1m (~£800,000), will feature an individual spectator for its final stage at the Jeunesse Arena, in Rio’s Barra da Tijuca arena. Ticket sales will start from May 25.
Concluded primarily through casting CS:GO competitions, Borba is currently the most prominent name in the Brazilian esports scene. He recently recorded 707,000 concurrent viewers on his Twitch channel during the match between Imperial and Cloud9 at the PGL Major Antwerp 2022, a record for the gaming community in Brazil.
The announcement follows the success of PGL’s first CS:GO Major of 2022. The event recorded an overall peak viewership of over 2.1m, making it the second most popular CS:GO esports tournament according to Esports Charts.
Ulrich Schultz, SVP Product Management at ESL Gaming. And we can’t wait for the best CS:GO teams in the world to finally enter the Jeunesse Arena and shake their foundations with enthusiasm in Brazil and beyond.”
related: ESL One Rio Confirmed as Next CS:GO Major
Esports Insider says: It didn’t make sense to host a Major in Brazil in 2020 during the COVID-19 crisis. Major Rio is one of the few opportunities for Brazilian fans who can’t travel to Europe or North America to see CS:GO in person., Given the size of the Gauls in Brazil, ESL secured a good deal by signing him as the announcer and caster of the IEM Rio Major 2022.
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