RFRSH Entertainment is a privately held Danish company that manages the best Counter-Strike team in the world, Astralis. They also own and run a tournament circuit called BLAST Pro Series.
Astralis have attended both BLAST events held so far this year, while declining invitations to three other premier tournaments.
This situation has raised the question on social media: Is there a potential conflict of interest here, and what implications might it have on the future of professional CS:GO?
In this installment of Don’t @ Me, Colin McNeil tackles the issue.
Written and hosted by: Colin McNeil (@McNeil Colin)
Edited by Daniel Rosen (@Daniel_Rosen)
Editing support by: Dennis Gonzales (@Tarmanydyn)
Graphic support by: Christian Pearson
Footage and images courtesy of:
Music used under license from Associated Production Music LLC (”APM”).
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33 comments
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how much did they paid you ????? just kidding
Idk I'm ? with this
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kek ????
Be it a conflict of interest or not, I do agree with Thorin that they are delegitimizing their reign as top 1 in the recent months. After Katowice, they have yet to attend a tier 1 event, and will not attend any tier 1 event until June with EPL Finals. After that its Cologne and the Major. 2 Tier 1 tournaments in between majors.
As the best team in the world, you would wonder why they are not competing among the best for such a long time.
Astralis may have had the most dominant era in 2018, but that dominance have fallen off in 2019, partially due to Blast.
first the okay symbol is racist and now this. man, how the mighty have fallen. also your example of what would be conflict of interest was literally the opposite of COI. if the entity funding either side truly wanted them to win, the guns would be free, so we can assume they don't care who wins and just wants to make money, so selling to both sides is good business and not COI.
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@theScoreesports hitler drank water and you drank water so your racists
The argument he made is grasping at straw's for it not being a conflict of interest. It is a conflict of interest for all the other TO's and Teams. Astralis being #1 in the world is also a super relevant point he just doesn't acknowledge.
if you hjave the best team on YOUR tournament people will want to wathc it more than others, giving investors a fun fun time with you. I call it conflict of interest m8
The corporate esport channel defending anti competitive corporate moves??? Shocker.
By your own logic it’s only a conflict of interest if the obligations conflict. There is an obvious way the conflict between Blast and Astralis. Blast’s goal is to have the most entertaining event possible. Astralis have the obligation to play to their best abilities at every tournament they attend. When Astralis has been dominating everything the stomps and one sided matches are boring. Therefore it would be better for Blast if Astralis sandbagged to make games closer at least. How you make a video on conflicts of interest and miss this is completely beyond me.
By your logic if the NFL happened to be owned only by Robert Kraft who owns the Patriots there is no conflict of interest. When we know full well there would be because of the number of times the patriots have been caught cheating. There would be a reason for the NFL to not sanction the Patriots. The fact that all the NFL team owners are equal is what stops something like this from happening. With Blast and Astralis there is no reason that If Astralis breaks the rules at a tournament that Blast doesn’t just sweep it under a rug.
I don't like the blast pro series…
I don't like billions of tournaments, it makes watching pro games seem like watching casual mm and majors seem to not matter AS MUCH as before (specially with non-major events having similar prize pools)
If anything your video convinced me that there is a conflict of interest, you can never trust a company's statement in these cases, wether or not they say there is or isn't, the fact that they own astralis and Blast Series is enough to make it a conflict, that's the only requirement, of course they won't agree that there is a conflict, or else that would destroy both companies.
Like Aaron said, it's not about the real evidence of conflict of interest, the only thing that matters is the POSSSIBILITY.
Should Blast Pro do it worse just so the other events have a better chance… what kind of logic is that?
I call it "A chance for other teams to win events without Astralis getting in their way."
Looks like only Astralis has family 😉 get the fuck outta here
Haven't been agreeing with any of this channels opinion videos. Should stick to story videos.
You know what'd be cool? If this channel could do a video or two on female esport. Like that would really help boost that scene. Please mates. Can we get some love for female esport athletes too? If nothing else then for the exposure they might get.
Astralis are literally the Brock Lesnar of CSGO
Astralis attended this event instead of those 3 mentioned events because when the number 1 team compete on a tournament im pretty sure more viewers will come
Why can't Elon Musk just buy csgo?
Astralis can do what they want and Sadokist's input was average at best. Maybe spend more time looking up the definition of interest and how that doesn't apply here.
8:40 Great! RFRSH propaganda! Because this guy has no interest in being dishonest and lying in this situation at all.
Well, I thought the dumbest words ever uttered were around 2:40, but congratulations. You outdid yourself around 4:04.
You actually dismantled your own argument there. The cognitive dissonance is incredible.
The whole concern of people here is that Astralis aren't going to tournaments, EVEN THOUGH they are better than Blast. So it doesn't matter if other tournaments improve. Because their owner has the potential to force Astralis to attend their tournaments.
Now Astralis being forced to attend a tournament is not a conflict of interest but it is a reasonable concern for people to have. There is however a concern with Astralis playing in a tournament organised by their owner.
Can we get disclosed who owns theScore? Starting to think it might be RFRSH as well
2.47 those might be the dumbest words ever uttered. There is a conflict of interest. As team owner of Astralis you have an interest of making Astralis win. As organiser of Blast you have an interest of running a fair and competitive tournament. THESE ARE CONFLICTING INTERESTS YOU DIMWHIT.
Jesus I can't believe how shit this publication is
I just don't understand why they go to Blast instead of the IEMs and DreamHack masters events. If they want to skip events then Blast in Sao Paolo and Miami shouldn't be the top priority?
It's per definition a conflict of interest when the team owner organises the tournament.
The story of CSGO chickens
i have the same shirt in navy xD