Better Collective’s leading esport brand HLTV honors the world’s best Counter-Strike 2 athletes
Since 2020, digital sports media group Better Collective has strategically strengthened its presence within the growing esport and gaming industry with the acquisitions of leading brands HLTV and FUTBIN. At the annual HLTV Awards hosted this Saturday in Belgrade, the best of the best within Counter-Strike 2 (CS 2) were announced in front of a record high number of attendees.
Over the past few years, Better Collective’s esport and gaming business has grown rapidly, expanding from no significant exposure to the industry in 2019 to an estimated revenue of 20 mEUR in 2024. This has been achieved through the acquisitions of world leading Counter-Strike media and community HLTV in 2020 and EA FC gaming media and community FUTBIN in 2022 coupled with steady organic growth.
Today, Better Collective’s esports and gaming media portfolio reaches an audience of approximately 100 million monthly visits thereby representing a significant portion of Better Collective’s total sports audience of more than 400 million monthly visits across its house of brands.
This Saturday, the fourth edition of the prestigious HLTV Awards presented by 1XBet brought together the global Counter-Strike community to honor and celebrate the best and brightest in the world of CS 2. The award is hosted by HLTV that stands as the leading Counter-Strike platform in the world featuring news, live-streaming, statistics, on-site tournament coverage and more. On average, the HLTV website has more than 270 million monthly pageviews while across social media platforms the brand has nearly two million followers.
Held physically in front of an enthusiastic audience of 600 esports professionals, advertising partners, fans, and industry leaders, and live-streamed on HLTV’s popular Twitch channel (the HLTV Awards 2024 has more than one million views) the ceremony presented the highlights of the CS 2 achievements from 2024. Among the standout moments of the evening were the announcements of the Player of the Year Award that is built on the HLTV Top 20 Players of the Year Ranking and which stands as Counter-Strike's equivalent to the Ballon d'Or of soccer. Among the other prestigious award categories were, Women’s Player of the Year, Team of the Year (men and women), Rookie of the Year, and the awards for the "underappreciated" roles such as In-game Leader of the Year and Coach of the Year. The program also included five categories within the “Community Awards” where the winners were decided by the votes shared by active HLTV users. In total, more than 150,000 votes were cast by the community.
Martin Rosenbæk, Co-founder of HLTV & Senior Director of Esports at Better Collective, says:
“Having been a part of Counter-Strike from the very beginning it sits at our core to cater to the fans of CS 2 and help the sport grow and prosper. The HLTV Awards is a celebration of all the hard work and dedication from the talent within the Counter-Strike scene and it's encouraging to see the support and traction the HLTV Awards gets from the entire Counter-Strike community. I'm proud of our contribution to the wider ecosystem and grateful for the support from colleagues, partners, teams and participants in shaping this year's event.”
This year, the HLTV Awards introduced an HLTV Hall of Fame to the ceremony announcing the first four inductees with the aim to preserve the legacy of Counter-Strike legends.
The quartet added to the new Hall of Fame consists of the four Swedes Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg, Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund, Emil "HeatoN" Christensen, and Tommy "Potti" Ingemarsson, as voted by the Hall of Fame Committee.
The full list of the winners at the HLTV Awards 2024 can be found on www.hltv.org/awards.
About HLTV
HLTV is the leading community for the esport Counter-Strike 2 (CS2), and provides comprehensive coverage of tournaments, matches, player rankings, statistics, and news updates. HLTV is widely recognized and respected within the CS2 community as the source of information and analysis within CS2 and is behind the official World ranking and hosts the yearly HLTV Awards celebrating the world’s best players and teams. In 2020, HLTV was acquired by the digital sports media group, Better Collective.
