Looking back, was IEM Rio the worst modern Major?

Not long left now until the Louvre Agreement crumbles to dust. But we still have IEM Rio to enjoy this year, with partner teams and local heroes, visa issues and Intel Grand Slam hopes and dreams. Even without Team Spirit, it’s going to be a stacked affair, and should any of the Brazilian teams make it to the playoffs, we can expect bedlam.

But doesn’t it all remind you of the Rio Major? Two years later, the sour taste in my mouth still lingers. We were promised a Samba de Janeiro, and we’ve got a carnival of rust instead.

Am I being too harsh? Read on, and you let me know.

In search of ESL’s missing Major

You might remember that the Rio Major was originally scheduled for November 2020, and it was meant to be the glorious return after the pandemic-ravaged period that saw events canceled left and right. Even then, it was meant to have a $2 million prize pool to make up for the gap since the StarLadder Berlin Major back in the second half of 2019. Instead, it also had to be canceled in the end, and ultimately, it took another year for Majors to return with the PGL Major in Stockholm.

Then came Antwerp, then Rio followed, almost exactly two years after it was initially scheduled. Much was made of the hype, with even the group stage matches played in front of an audience and the first truly massive event in Brazil – a nation with a massive fanbase and great modern pedigree in CS – after smaller affairs in Belo Horizonte. It was also ESL’s first major since Cologne 2016.

Imagine our collective disappointment when we got the same bland, overused ESL sheen in production and graphics as we have throughout the pandemic period, with nothing to signify the scale and prestige of this event. There was also a toxic whiff of organizational issues throughout, the sense that the TO’s muscles atrophied over the years past or just couldn’t quite get the handle on the environment. With multiple mid-round crashes plaguing the group stage and extensive tech issues delaying affairs, it often felt like amateur-hour old-school esports fare.

It was meant to be a glorious statement, the first of many events in this passionate area of the world, a new and potentially lucrative area to explore – and it looked like just any other competition, executed in an even worse manner.

It certainly didn’t sound like one, though.

From loyalty to library

The Rio Major was more about the crowd than CS, I wrote back in November 2022, and if you think back to the tournament, chances are it’s still the first thing that comes to your mind. The Brazilian fans were nothing short of raucous – as long as Brazilian teams were playing. They brought the Sturm and the Drang in equal measure, creating an incredible atmosphere while also going to incredible lengths to cheat in favor of their compatriots.

Crowds helping their favorite is not an exclusive phenomenon – Danish audiences and Astralis have long formed a symbiotic relationship – but the excessive levels, combined with the utter lack of interest in (and one could argue, respect towards) games not featuring the hometown heroes made this simultaneously the most noticeable and the worst crowd presence at a live S-Tier CS event in recent memory. Is this an unsolved issue to this day? Yes. Was it disruptively blatant? Hell yes. There’s a reason why ESL had to turn off the x-ray and the minimap in the arena “to protect the integrity of the tournament.” In a game of hidden information, this has never been acceptable, no matter what the apologists say. There’s a reason why wallhacks are a ban-worthy offense.

And sure, some people enjoy watching the audience screaming at the top of their lungs to support their favorites, even when they cross the line somewhat – but surely no one enjoyed the utter lack of presence and interest they displayed in the games once the teams they supported got banged out of the event, chanting Furia’s name during the MOUZ-Outsiders semis. There’s a reason why all the library memes came about. But they cared. Oh, they did. There was spitting, and trying to grab players. The whole lot.

Broadcasting nightmares

A huge contributor to the messy live experience was gaules, who never should have been given a professional broadcast role for an international audience. The man who was all too happy to accuse a team that beat MiBR of cheating just couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about in the crowd. (No, I’m sorry, I’ve got that wrong. “They will never understand…) But he got his fan fest and casted (poorly) in the arena throughout, to the detriment of the overall experience. Recently, he missed out on co-streaming rights entirely. Not that he was the only source of drama on the broadcast back then – no, we’ve got something darker, too.

Remember Sadokist? He was a good caster. He also drunkenly used a slur on a livestream in 2018, but got a second chance, because esports. Well, at the Rio Major, he allegedly got drunk again, smashed a TV, and got into an argument so heated that it ended with the police being called, to quote Dexerto’s reporting.

To put it in terms that would resonate with him, imagine if Daniel Ricciardo, fresh off losing his Red Bull drive for saying some truly despicable things, got a chance at redemption with VCARB, only for him to berate and attack the mechanics after a failed pit stop and the marshals had to get involved. It wouldn’t make for a fun Drive to Survive episode, you know what I’m saying?

There are more reasons to dislike the Major. The playoffs were full of underdogs who failed to make a mark later (unlike in Paris, where at least some of the players went on to do great things on other squads), and the eventual winners did the square root of fuck all elsewhere in the circuit. And just on a small, pathetic, personal level, the whole Jame and masturbation thing… something, something, poor taste in the mouth. No wonder the viewership wasn't up to snuff, either, passionate Brazilians notwithstanding.

You know what’s the damnedest thing about all this? It’s that all this mess would kind of be a nice way for a regular IEM event to stand out, a can’t-look-away-car-crash sort of thing. But it was all so deeply, deeply unbecoming of a Major – and I, for one, am glad that it’s so far behind in the rear-view mirror now, hopefully never to return.