Team Vitality’s historic season powers Counter-Strike 2 to most-watched year ever

Counter-Strike 2 shattered every viewership record in 2025. The BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 became the most-watched Counter-Strike tournament of all time with 76.11 million Hours Watched, while the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 followed with 71.31 million Hours Watched. Austin’s grand finals peaked at 1.79 million concurrent viewers, and Budapest reached 1.59 million, according to Esports Charts’ year-end report. For the first time, four Counter-Strike 2 teams cracked the global top 10 most-watched esports organizations—double the representation from 2024.

Vitality’s dominance and the new Counter-Strike elite

Team Vitality finished 2025 as the fifth most-watched esports team in the world with 90.3 million Hours Watched, the highest Counter-Strike showing in overall rankings since Natus Vincere’s 2021 peak. The French-led organization delivered back-to-back Major championships at Austin and Budapest, nine tier-S trophies, and headlined every major viewership milestone including the IEM Katowice grand finals (1.3 million peak viewers) and the Intel Grand Slam at IEM Melbourne (1.24 million peak viewers).