Teams and players that wish to attend Valve-sponsored championships will need to publicly disclose their business relationships with other participants or the tournament organizer, Valve revealed today. Participants that don’t disclose this information will likely be disqualified for the Major.
Valve says it wants to evaluate each situation and determine if there is a conflict of interest. “So that public conversations can be had about the value that leagues and other entanglements offer versus the risk that they pose,” Valve said.
This new requirement comes two months after Valve addressed conflict of interest and exclusivity in CS:GO on a blog post called “Keeping Things Competitive.” In that post, Valve said that it is not interested in providing licenses to exclusive tournaments, with restricted teams.
Valve’s new rule will make it harder for tournament organizers to own teams. Astralis, the best CS:GO team in the world was controlled by RFRSH until July, a company that also organizes the BLAST Pro Series circuit.
That said, a tournament organizer isn’t prohibited to own a team. Companies, on the other hand, can’t operate two different CS:GO teams.
