Largest Stadium in Brazil Declines to Host Rio Major Amid Venue Change Appeal

ESL dropped a pleasant surprise for the entire CS:GO community on 24^th May by announcing the IEM Rio Major 2022 all set to take place at the Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

However, when the tickets went on sale they were sold out in just 60 minutes, causing a huge uproar across the CS:GO community, especially by the Brazilian fans who were witnessing the first-ever Major taking place in South America.

This was followed by a call to action by the community demanding a change in venue for the Rio Major. This was supported by many players and personalities voicing similar opinions, which resulted in '#MajorNoMaracanã' going viral on Twitter.

The largest stadium in Brazil, Maracanã Stadium, which is also located in Rio de Janeiro responded to the trending hashtag but received no response from ESL, confirming in a secondary statement that they will not be able to host the Rio Major this time.

IEM Rio Major 2022: Largest stadium in Brazil Maracanã declines hosting the CS:GO tournament this time

Soon after the announcement for the Rio Major went live, the excitement from the community was replaced by concern as the venue for the tournament, Jeunesse Arena, seemed rather small with a maximum capacity of only 18,000 spectators.

The indoor multi-purpose arena was even smaller than the Antwerps Sportpaleis, the venue for the recently concluded PGL Antwerp Major 2022 which reportedly became the largest indoor esports event of all time as more than 20,000 spectators attended the grand final between FaZe Clan and NAVI.

Considering that Brazil is one of the prime venues to host a CS:GO Major due to its large and passionate fanbase which is bound to attend the event in huge numbers, the fans were gutted when the tickets for the event were sold out within an hour of them going live.

The grave disappointment by the fans was expressed over the internet with many requesting the event to be shifted to another venue, most likely to the Maracanã Stadium, which has a capacity of more than 78,500 spectators, making it the largest stadium in Brazil.

Many players like Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo, Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato, Helvijs "broky" Saukants, Ricardo "boltz" Prass, and more came forward requesting a bigger venue for the first-ever Major to take place in South America.

Furthermore, multiple other stadiums from across Brazil also reached out to ESL on Twitter to offer their services for the Major including Allianz Parque located in São Paulo with a capacity of 45,000 spectators and Arena da Baixada located in Curitiba with a capacity of 42,000 spectators.

However, ESL did not respond to any of these requests publicly and it seems that the tournament will most likely go ahead as per the organizers original plans.

Further Maracanã Stadium after showing support for relocating the Rio Major to another location has now confirmed that they will not be able to host the tournament this time.

The time at which the CS:GO Major is taking place in Brazil seems to be packed with multiple events taking place around the same time,

• Finals of the Brazilian Football Championship.

• The Sao Paulo Grand Prix 2022 (Brazilian GP).

• Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (ENEM), which is a non-mandatory standardized Brazilian national exam that evaluates high school students in Brazil.

Despite all these events the Rio Major has managed to sell out the current venue within an hour, further showing the passion of the Brazilian fans and how eager they are to come out and watch the best teams from around the world perform at this tournament.