CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 22: (L-R) Ben Bruce, James Cassells, Cameron Liddell, Sam Bettley, and Denis Stoff of Asking Alexandria attend the 2015 Journeys AP Music Awards, Fueled by Monster Energy Drink at Quicken Loans Arena on July 22, 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Duane Prokop/Getty Images)
As Blast Pro Series continues to grab a share of the ever-expanding esports fan base around the world the hype around the approaching Los Angeles event was recently heightened with the announcement of an official music partner.
The popular band Asking Alexandria has signed on to provide music for the professional esports event centered on the Counterstrike: Global Offensive game. The theme of the July 13, 2019 event at the USC Galen Centre will share the title of Asking Alexandria’s hit song, “When The Lights Come On.”
Asking Alexandria is a modern, active rock band that has 528 million streams and 1.1 million followers on Spotify. The band has also notched eight consecutive hits in the top 20 in US radio. Ben Bruce, Cameron Liddell, Danny Worsnop, James Cassells and Sam Bentley compose the band’s members.
Blast Pro Series is a CS: GO professional league sponsored by the Valve Corporation. It is a PC first-person shooter developed by Hidden Path Entertainment that has been around since the fall of 1999 and has expanded since then with ever-evolving characters, maps, modes and weapons. The game boasts 9 million followers on Twitch and close to 50,000 individual streamers, making it the second-most popular esports title in the world. The pro league features seven teams from around the world who will compete this year in seven tournaments in seven different international cities for a total prize pool of $2.25 million.
The Los Angeles Event will be the second Blast Pro Series event played in the United States this year, coming on the heels of an event in Miami. Faze Clan won that event over Team Liquid 2-0, claiming a $250,000 prize.
Before Los Angeles in July, however, there are more immediate concerns for five of the Blast Pro Series teams. On May 10 and 11, 2019, five Blast Pro Series teams and one local qualifying squad will face off in Madrid, Spain for a prize purse of another $250,000. Astralis, Cloud9, ENCE, NaVi and NiP constitute the contingent of Blast Pro Series teams set to compete. Five Spanish teams will compete to nab the sixth spot in the tournament bracket, taking part in the first-ever qualifier event on Spanish soil in Blast Pro Series history. The schedule of events for Madrid, with all times Eastern, is as follows and all matches can be streamed live for free on the Blast Pro Series Twitch channel:
Friday, May 10
10 a.m.: Play-in round begins
2:45 p.m.: Round 1 begins – Cloud 9 vs. Qualifier Winner, ENCE vs. NaVi, Astralis vs. NiP
4:15 p.m.: Round 2 begins – NiP vs. ENCE, Cloud9 vs. NaVi, Astralis vs. Qualifier Winner
Saturday, May 11
9 a.m.: Round 3 begins – Astralis vs. NaVi, Cloud9 vs. ENCE, NiP vs. Qualifier Winner
10:20 a.m.: Round 4 begins – Astralis vs. ENCE, Cloud9 vs. NiP, NaVi vs. Qualifier Winner
11:40 a.m.: Round 5 begins – ENCE vs. Qualifier Winner, Astralis vs. Cloud9, NiP vs. NaVi
1 p.m.: Blast Stand-Off
2 p.m. Grand Final
Teams and the schedule for Los Angeles have yet to be announced, but fans will be treated to a strong contingent of CS: GO action set to the music of Asking Alexandria regardless of which squads end up on the docket.