ESL has announced that the second CS:GO Major of 2022 will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The IEM Rio Major will be held from October 31 to November 13, with the playoffs taking place in front of a live crowd at the Jeunesse Arena during the final four days of the competition.
The Jeunesse Arena, which seats 15,000 people for athletic events, has already held a number of esports tournaments, including the 2017 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational and the 2018 Rainbow Six Siege Season 8 Pro League finals.
The IEM Rio Major will feature twenty-four teams competing for a prize pool of $1 million, the same amount as the PGL Major Antwerp.
Details about the Major’s qualifying process will be released in the following weeks.
The IEM Rio Major will be ESL’s eleventh CS:GO Major, but it will be the first since IEM Katowice 2019, with StarLadder hosting the second Major that year in Berlin and PGL hosting the next two in Stockholm (2021) and Antwerp (2022). (2022).
The Rio Major was originally scheduled for May 2020 under the name “ESL One: Rio Major,” but was postponed owing to the worldwide health crisis.
“We couldn’t be more excited to finally bring the Major to Rio de Janeiro,” said Ulrich Schulze, SVP Product Management at ESL Gaming. “The ever-growing and passionate Brazilian esports community is amazing and for the past couple of years we have been hoping to provide the fans with one of the greatest esports experiences ever.
“Now the time is finally here and we can’t wait for the world’s best CS:GO teams to ultimately enter the Jeunesse Arena and have it shake to its foundations from the excitement from Brazil and beyond.”
“Intel is very proud to bring Intel Extreme Masters back to Brazil — and this time as a CS:GO Major so our local gaming community can experience firsthand one of the top CS:GO tournaments in the world,” said Carlos Augusto Buarque, marketing director at Intel Brazil.
“Gaming happens with Intel, and we have increasingly sought to offer the best technologies to gamers around the world. Brazil is one of Intel’s key markets in the world and when it comes to gaming, 3 out of 4 Brazilians play electronic games, so being part of the organization of an event as big as this one is very important for us”.
Tickets for the IEM Rio Major will go on sale on Wednesday, May 25, at 6pm BST, with prices ranging from R$90 ($18.79) for one-day, early-bird tickets for Thursday and Friday to R$1,999 ($417.35) for Lounge tickets.
IEM Rio 2022 will be the 18th CS:GO Major since 2013, and ESL’s 10th overall.
The last time ESL hosted a Major was at the IEM Katowice Major in 2019, where Astralis won their third overall Major and second in a three-peat.
Brazil played in three of the four Major grand finals between 2016 and 2017, with the Luminosity/SK Gaming roster winning two straight titles at MLG Columbus and ESL One Cologne in 2016.
Since 2015, every Major has had a Brazilian team in the playoffs, with the exception of StarLadder Berlin.