Popular Caster Bardolph Reveals Reason Behind His Absence From CS:GO

One of the more popular CS:GO casters in the world, James Bardolph, has been absent from the scene for quite sometime now. The community has certainly noticed this and wonder why his voice has not been heard casting any of the top competitive tournaments.

As users started to discuss this among themselves, the 38-year-old himself came forward to address the issue, posting quite a lengthy statement publicly that outlined all the reasons in great detail that have contributed to his absence from the current competitive CS:GO circuit.

Bardolp mentioned that a lot of people have asked him the reason for his absence from casting CS:GO during his streaming sessions, which he takes as a good sign and so he went on to elaborate on the same.

British caster Bardolph explains the reason behind his absence from CS:GO tournaments

Fans last saw Bardolph in the Global Esports Tour Dubai 2022: MENA Qualifier, which took place in November last year.

If we were to consider the last top-tier CS:GO tournament, then the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 would be regarded as his last gig alongside his partner in crime, Daniel "ddk" Kapadia. Since then, Bardolph has not been spotted in any CS:GO tournament.

Bardolph explained his absence by pinning it on a vacuum has been created in Counter-Strike.

He said that as ddk and he were both part of FACEIT, it was tough for them to commit to other tournaments far in advance. This was because Esports Championship Series (ECS) - FACEIT's flagship CS:GO league which ran from 2016 to 2019, always had a turbulent schedule "due to our competition trying to swallow up the calendar (and) teams, making it hard for us to run events."

But despite this, the duo was hired for multiple BLAST tournaments like Los Angeles, Istanbul, Madrid, and more. However, he pointed out that ESL has largely ignored the duo, only hiring them for one tournament in 2016. "They have the lion share of the calendar and simply chose not to hire us for their events," states Bardolph.

Soon after BLAST changed its format and cut down on the number of casters needed to run the show, using the same two pairs for each tournament. ESL continued to avoid hiring them despite community demand, "and there you have the vacuum," he said.

Now that ESL and FACEIT have merged, ESL can hire him to do any tournament, but that has not happened so far. He went on to urge his supporters that if they wanted to see him in more Counter-Strike events then they would simply have to spam the people that are involved in organizing those events, "it is quite simply up to them."

Bardolph concluded by saying that he never left CS:GO and has been here the whole time, "I did an ASUS ROG event earlier this year but in terms of the big stuff it's simply down to ESL. They know I'm available."

With a lot more CS:GO tournaments still left to take place before the season folds, it remains to be seen if the community gets to witness Bardolph casting another match on the big stage or not.