If We Must Come To Brazil Does It Have To Be Rio?

The last few events in Rio for competitive Counter-Strike have been disappointments and now their local government is asking for another Major. Can we explore the other cities Brazil has to offer?

Furia vs Mouz IEM Rio 2024 photo: Rodrigo Monteneiro CNN

It was only a few weeks ago we watched another Counter-Strike event in Rio de Janeiro play out to a partially empty and very quiet stadium because a Brazilian team couldn’t make it to the last day. Not long after it was revealed on Brazilian CS news website Dust2.com.br that there would be no 2025 event in Rio stating that “The city was interested in continuing to host the competition next year, but ESL chose not to do so.” Given the long list of disappointments CS2 esports has seen of late this is a rare and welcome piece of good news.

ESL of course won’t publicly own the decision mostly because in that sense they are utter cowards. Once a company that was boldly confident in their superiority they have become a Riot Games lite… Once they’ve accepted their orders from Riyadh all that remains is to take their cues from Reddit, desperately poring over threads filled with idiotic opinions and then using that to tailor the direction of their product. They’re not going to risk isolating one of the largest and most aggressively vocal fanbases, one they’ve spent years seducing, by openly admitting most events held in their country come with so many downsides they’re not really worth doing.

And so my Brazilian brothers and sisters I’ll let you in on a secret that is sure to upset some of you. Tournament operators, particularly ESL, don’t really think you’re the best fans in the world when they say that. They are pandering to you because of the huge numbers you represent, numbers crucially important to massage metrics for sponsors and essential to crafting bloviated press releases about how their event broke new ground. Don’t feel betrayed… It’s just your turn for this fake, transactional appreciation and you must have already observed how they are already moving on to the Middle East and after that it will be India. You see, wherever there’s a new market to unlock is where the “world’s best fans” reside. 

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with that but it counters the premise that Rio, or any other Brazilian city for that matter, is entitled to host a stop on a global tour. The event has to make sense logistically, financially and in a way spiritually, by which I mean all the press releases in the world cannot counter the footage of empty stadium seats with a smattering of bored fans who attend only out of sense of not wasting a ticket they already paid for. That does not help further the narrative that we – that is the global community of CS – MUST come to Brazil every year, especially when other parts of the world are told events in their part in the world are being scrapped regardless of ticket sales or audience enthusiasm.

You think this is a lesson we would have already learned. The IEM Rio Major might not be the worst in the purest sense. Take your pick from FACEIT London of Starladder Berlin for that dubious accolade. However IEM Rio will always remain the biggest disgrace with so many incidents that are a stain on the game’s history. Having Brazil’s biggest streamer proclaim that the world championships of Counter-Strike were in fact not for the world, that the only thing that mattered is what Brazilians think about it, sure is something. Starting chants for Brazilian team Furia while two other teams compete is also indicative of how little anyone domestically cared for the occasion. Throw in fans literally spitting on the greatest player to ever touch the game and then later he was metaphorically spat on by ESL too, handed a player of the decade award with his name misspelled on the screens around him in front of about two hundred people. That’s a far cry from the “celebration of counter-strike” that fans have come to expect. By that point the grand final being played out in a mostly empty stadium is the punchline to a joke that is at all your expense.

Now, every time I’ve criticised the poisonous element within the Brazilian fanbase I have been called a xenophobic gringo but I’ll extend to those who would say that an olive branch. Brazil should absolutely be included in a global Counter-Strike tour, especially given its historical contributions to the sport, so the compromise we should all agree on is simple. No more Rio. 

I won’t speak on behalf of Brazilians. The sheer volume of messages containing that famous photograph of a naked, smiling Vampeta brandishing a semi-erect penis have made it clear that will never be appropriate. You might say I will never understand. Yet in my experience having talked to many Brazilians down the years the attitude, assuming you’re not from Rio, can be summed up as “fuck Rio.” There’s a belief that people from Rio have a superiority complex, that despite it happening in 1960 they’ve never adjusted to the fact that they aren’t the capital city of the country, that Flamengo fans think they’re the greatest team of all time when there’s three clubs from Sao Paolo that all have achieved more. Rio, being on the coast, is also a difficult and long journey to get to for most natives of Brazil and a more centralised location makes much more sense for the fan experience.
 Of greater importance than the fan experience is that of the competitors that such an event is reliant upon. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the safety protocols around attending Rio, currently sitting as the city with the eighth highest crime rate in the world, are beyond anything acceptable for an esports event. Players have to be shuttled and escorted on journeys to and from the hotels. The handbook distributed to competitors contains pages of safety protocols that simply aren’t necessary at other events. It contains warnings that can be summarised as “don’t flaunt your wealth” and “don’t be alarmed if your driver doesn’t stop at red lights.” I wish these were exaggerations but as I’ll now show you, this is absolutely what you have to endure if you wish to compete at an event in Rio.

Several attendees have also told me that there was a private security detail, in other words armed guards, on hand for the entirety of the trip, sometimes even deployed on floors of hotels where players were resting. I appreciate the gesture but if this is really necessary then why is it so essential to have an event in a place where this a requirement. Maybe I’m just a thinker but I do believe on a long enough timescale sending undersocialised video game nerds into hotbeds of violent crime will eventually lead to an upsetting outcome. And yes, I’d say this about Detroit as well.

The message sent to attendees about the “local security” at the event

Why am I highlighting this now? Well Rio’s local government apparently wants to host a CS Major in the city again by 2027 and is willing to work with any tournament operator – which obviously would include those not willing to hire an armed detail to keep players safe at the event – to make it happen. That’s according to journalist and Coordinator of Games and Esports for the city of Rio Chandy Teixera at least. “Rio already has its tourism potential and we have the Olympic legacy in our favor” he said in an interview with Dust.com.br. “IEM Rio takes place within this legacy, which has other arenas that can also serve esports. We have a high-capacity hotel network in which, when people decide to come to Brazil, they decide to come to the postcard. We discuss case by case, but we have a portfolio of actions that we are taking to attract these developers.”

Yeah but no… Look, without wanting to lean into the whole Paulistas vs Cariocas rivalry I think at this point we can safely declare Rio a failed experiment for CS esports and suggest the city many regard as Brazil’s finest as a replacement. There are a number of reasons why São Paulo should be the go-to city for esports in Brazil. The first and most obvious is it’s more central location meaning that fans from other neighbouring regions, maybe those who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to get to an esports event, could attend. The second is that it’s unquestionably safer, its crime rates being significantly lower than Rio and without the chance that a GPS app will lead you into a favela by accident. São Paulo also has a long history of esports events having been part of the IEM tour for League of Legends in the past right the way through to hosting the Rainbow Six Invitational in February this year. All of those events enjoyed significant crowd response with the caveat that Brazilian teams had significant runs in those tournaments. Still, I’d wager Paulistas will relish the opportunity to show their Rio counterparts that they are the better fanbase should a CS event be held there.

A shot of the 9000 strong crowd at the Rainbow Six Initational in Sao Paulo photo: Eric Ananmalay / Ubisoft

At this point we should accept that there’s a lot more to Brazil than Rio. I don’t care how many lobbyists push for tournament operators to take their roadshow there, the reality is that there seems to be a malignant nationalism that descends every single time a tournament starts and I’m bored of it. Don’t misunderstand me. I take no issue with a crowd supporting the home team, even when that encompasses booing of the opponents, even in victory. That’s all fair game and comes with the price of admission. What I want us to start accepting in this industry is that a sports event and an esports event are not direct analogs and therefore we don’t have to import the expectations from one into the other. A ticket purchased to see a specific team play one match is not the same as buying for an event experience where you will be given the opportunity to see the best teams in the world, even if that doesn’t include your own nation. In that regard the esports event is superior but only in so much if the fans understand the experience they are buying into. The events in Rio simply haven’t lived up to their billing and it’s time to cater to Brazilian fans elsewhere. In esports terms I’m of the mindset that we still haven’t really come to Brazil.