What Blast’s Dota 2 expansion means for Blast.tv

Today, May 8, the esports company Blast announced that it is expanding into “Dota 2,” Valve Corporation’s popular multiplayer online battle arena game. The goal of this expansion is to bring new audiences into the entire Blast esports ecosystem — but the real winner of the move is Blast.tv, the company’s homegrown streaming platform.

Blast launched Blast.tv in November 2022 to act as both a hub for esports data and a platform to stream the company’s “Counter-Strike” tournaments. At the moment, it’s a free service, and Blast has no immediate plans to put any part of it behind a paywall. 

Blast livestreams its events across both Blast.tv and third-party streaming platforms such as Twitch. To bring viewers into Blast.tv, Blast has loaded it up with a suite of in-depth viewing tools and regularly updated in-game data feeds, not unlike the extra features included in FACEIT Watch, the homegrown viewing channel of Blast rival ESL/FACEIT Group. Like FACEIT Watch, Blast.tv is free-to-use, not a premium, paid product. Unlike FACEIT Watch, Blast.tv does not currently include advertisements inside its livestreams.

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