Copenhagen marks longest time without a Major in NA

North America has been host to, arguably, two of the most exciting Majors in CS:GO history; MLG Columbus 2016 and ELEAGUE Boston 2018. Both events culminated in memorable finals with the brash Brazilians of Luminosity taking home their first Major and the Americans of Cloud9 becoming the first NA team to take their first and only Major title.

Since Boston, the US has not hosted a single Major, with events slowly dissipating from the space as IEM Chicago, IEM New York, and IEM Oakland are all relics of the past.

With the announcement of PGL Copenhagen 2024, it will mark six years without a Major in North America, which is the longest by pure calendar time, but it will also be the eighth Major without coming across the pond.

MLG Columbus 2016 was the eighth Major of the CS:GO circuit and first in North America. ELEAGUE Boston 2018 was the 12th Major of the game and the 3rd Major in the United States.

For a period of three years, North America got to have a Major at least once in each calendar year. Now, it will be a long stretch, exacerbated by COVID-19 that has prevented the region from getting to host one of the most special tournaments that the game has to offer.

While something can be said that IEM Rio 2022 was at least within the Americas region, and long overdue for a region that has risen to international prominence, North America has been without one for so long.

The problem that faces North America might be the lack of domestic tournament organizers with the capability to host such an event. The three Majors in North America were held by MLG and ELEAGUE, the latter being institutionally backed by Turner Sports. ESL, BLAST, StarLadder, PGL, or others have not hosted a Major, nor does it seem they intend to with most of their operations being based in Europe.

ESL, as mentioned before, have seemingly scaled down its tournament operations in the United States as only IEM Dallas remains as a marquee event in the continent. This compares to Brazil which will see IEM Rio return from being a Major in the fall, to an event in the springtime.

On one hand, the game of Counter-Strike has never been more international, but at what expense does that come to a region that used to be one of the best? Time will tell if Counter-Strike Majors make the return back home stateside, but for now, fans will just have to wait.