BLAST Confirms Redundancies After SPUNJ Payment Claims
Counter-Strike tournament organiser BLAST has confirmed a restructure that led to redundancies in the United Kingdom and Denmark, days after CS2 analyst Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill claimed on the HLTV Confirmed podcast that the company is running behind on some payments. BLAST has not commented on the payment allegation itself, and the claim remains unverified.
The company told The Esports Radar that it recently completed an internal restructuring designed to position the business for growth in 2027 and beyond.
According to that report, the new corporate structure is built to support global expansion and multi-title events with commercial partners. BLAST described the number of redundancies as limited but did not say how many people were affected in either country.
What SPUNJ Said
Speaking on the most recent HLTV Confirmed episode, Burchill said he had heard about layoffs from former BLAST employees he knows personally. He also said people in his circle had gone without pay for stretches he would describe as significant.
He added that he is not the biggest fan of BLAST but that it would be a loss for the wider Counter-Strike scene if the company were squeezed out of the market.
Burchill warned that things could deteriorate quickly if rival organiser PGL gains ground, if BLAST fails to attract big names, or if its product starts to look less attractive to sponsors. Those comments are one analyst's account of what he has been told, and BLAST has not confirmed any of the payment details.
BLAST's Commercial Position
The restructure comes against a backdrop of strong reported growth. BLAST reported $133m in revenue for the 2025 financial year, up 40% year on year, while remaining profitable, and opened a North American headquarters in Brooklyn, New York to run commercial operations in the region.
Its partner list has also grown. Michelin, Progressive Insurance, Razer, Sargento and logistics firm EFM Global have all signed on in recent years, and BLAST named Polymarket its official prediction partner for the 2026 season.
Alongside its flagship Counter-Strike 2 circuit, which generated a reported $102m in economic impact for host city Austin through the 2025 Major, the company runs the Fortnite and Rocket League Championship Series ecosystems in partnership with Epic Games.
Why It Matters For Esports Bettors
BLAST events are among the busiest on the Counter-Strike betting calendar, and the stability of the organisers behind them feeds into how smoothly tournaments are scheduled, run and settled. Prize money and player payments are also a long-running integrity topic in the scene. Bettors who follow CS2 on betting sites can find the latest developments in our Esports World Cup Counter-Strike 2 coverage.
For now, the facts on the record are limited to the restructure and the redundancies. Whether the payment delays described on the podcast are real, and how widespread they might be, has not been established. We will update this story if BLAST or the affected parties say more.
