Jonathan “EliGE”, playing for the American team Liquid. Jablonowski gave an interview to the Pley YouTube channel, in which he spoke about the problems of North American Counter Strike. He believes that the professional scene in this region is currently in decline, and it will not be possible to return to its former popularity for a long time.
The initial source of problems was that after Riot released its competitive shooter Valorant, many high-level eSports players switched to this discipline. The players who replaced them are not yet very well known to fans, and among them there are few media figures who would attract spectators. EliGE also believes that esports players do not pay enough attention to creating content that fans would be interested in following.
Additional difficulties arose due to the pandemic. With the best players and teams in Europe, the North American scene had a harder time growing, resulting in some teams, such as 100 Thieves and Chaos, being forced to disband their rosters.
Jablonowski believes that teams should work, first of all, to increase fan interest. This will attract more sponsors and e-sports organizations that will be interested in the attention of viewers.
