Astralis could withdraw from BLAST CSGO tourneys over NEOM partnership BLAST \/ RFRSH EntertainementAstralis have said they could withdraw from BLAST CSGO events over the tournament organizer\u2019s ties with Saudi Arabian project NEOM, as fierce opposition to these types of deals grows. CEO of the Danish esport org Anders H\u00f8rsholt told Politiken.dk that the deal is \u201cunacceptable\u201d and condemned the partnership with Saudi Arabi, noting that \u201cesports is and must be for everyone.\u201d There has been a major wave of backlash toward esports entities tying themselves with the $500 billion project. \u201cWe always want to solve this kind of problem directly with our partners and give them a fair chance to solve this in the right way,\u201d H\u00f8rsholt said in a translated statement. \u201cAt the same time, however, we have made it clear that we can in no way stand up in a context where our brand, players or partners are connected with companies of this type, and we naturally expect Blast to find a solution.\u201d Since BLAST announced the deal, everyone from on-air talent to big names in the scene decried the move. Multiple teams participating in BLAST events have reportedly banded together to push the parent company to cancel its deal with NEOM, per HLTV. At least as far as Astralis goes, the Danish group said that their company nor players could align with partners that are tied to entities such as the ones backing the NEOM city. On a practical level, if BLAST goes through with its partnership, H\u00f8rsholt\u2019s statement would mean that Astralis could be missing from future events. That would be a massive blow to BLAST, seeing as those events have long been associated with Astralis and the team has been a major draw for audiences. Both organizations used to be a part of the same company under RFRSH Entertainment, though Astralis parted ways from them in 2019. This comes on the heels of other esports companies announcing deals with NEOM that have been met with similar public dissent. Fans as well as industry figures contested the deals, primarily citing Saudi Arabia\u2019s stance and actions against the LGBT community. Riot Games recently overturned its deal with NEOM earlier in the month \u2013 although sources indicated that while the deal was nullified, there hasn\u2019t been much change within the company despite Riot saying they were \u201ccommitted to reexamining our internal structures to ensure this doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d Astralis will wait to see if BLAST comes up with a resolution to this predicament involving NEOM, but lack of action could result in at least one team skipping their events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Astralis could withdraw from BLAST CSGO tourneys over NEOM partnership BLAST \/ RFRSH EntertainementAstralis have said they could withdraw from BLAST CSGO events over the tournament organizer\u2019s ties with Saudi Arabian project NEOM, as fierce opposition to these types of deals grows. CEO of the Danish esport org Anders H\u00f8rsholt told Politiken.dk that the deal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}