Editor's note: A lot of you, our amazing readers, wanted to see more analysis from us. This section is an attempt at that. Let us know on Twitter or in a reply to this email if this is something you'd like to see more of.
As Covid-19 rages across the World and has put society at large to a stand-still, the effects haven't been felt too harshly in CS:GO and esports. Maybe it's because we spend most of the time trying to get better at CS anyway (and failing spectacularly one might add), or it could simply be because online CS is second nature to us.
Either way the last few months have been pretty much business as usual in CS:GO, right? On the surface that's true. Players still moan about broken guns, SPUNJ still provides a ton of content for the nocontextspunj-account on Twitter and Thorin still lives rent free in our heads.
But if we go a level deeper, there's a profound change coming to the CS:GO landscape, that might change it forever. Parts of the esports market has surged during extended quarantines, but for the teams the truth is very different. Astralis Group for instance, have had to take a 30% paycut, and several other publicly traded companies have furloughed or laid off staff to balance cost.
Esports orgs have one thing in common across the board: High expenses and low to medium revenue-streams. Astralis Group expected a high double digit increase in sponsorship revenue this year - is that still attainable in the current market? Not likely.
In short it means that teams with high salaries and low liquidity are in trouble. Especially if they are entrenched in other expensive ventures like franchised leagues.
CS:GO salaries are in line for a big downwards correction, but if that doesn't happen quick enough, expect to see Top 20 rosters moving to new homes where pockets are deeper. As Thorin succinctly puts it - "It's a buyer's market".
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