Playing for American Liquid team Jonathan «EliGE» Jablonowski gave an interview to YouTube channel Pley, in which he spoke about the problems of North American Counter Strike. He believes that the professional scene in the region is currently in decline, and it won't be back to its former popularity for a long time.
The original source of the problems was that after Riot released its competitive shooter Valorant, many high-level cyber athletes moved into the discipline. The players who replaced them are not yet well known to fans, and there are few media personalities among them that would attract viewers. EliGE also believes that cyber athletes are not paying enough attention to creating content that fans would be interested in following.
Additional difficulties have arisen due to the pandemic. Because the best players and teams were in Europe, the North American scene had a harder time developing, resulting in some teams, such as 100 Thieves and Chaos, being forced to disband.
Jablonowski believes that teams should work on increasing fan interest first and foremost. This will attract more sponsors and cybersports organizations that will be interested in the attention of viewers.