If you've been browsing HLTV or scrolling through social media hoping to catch even the faintest trace of blockbuster transfer rumors during this off-season, you'll certainly have been disappointed.
Once again, the expectation of a full-blown rostermania, with top-tier organizations making sweeping changes and getting involved in bidding wars for the hottest talents, has fallen short.
After a season largely dominated by Vitality and capped off by Falcons' dream run to the title at the Cologne Major, many organizations certainly wished they could make upgrades to have a shot at challenging for trophies in what's left to play in 2026.
The money just isn't there.
For many organizations, the current climate calls for belt-tightening rather than lavish spending on transfer deals that carry risk and may not deliver the desired results.
Part of the reason for their more careful approach to spending is the recent sticker changes introduced by Valve before the IEM Cologne Major.
Most notably, Valve scrapped the capsule unboxing system for stickers. Instead, fans purchased tokens to redeem the stickers they wanted, with prices fluctuating according to demand.
With capsules gone, Valve devised a new formula for splitting 50 percent of the revenue generated by the Major shop and Major pass: 5 percent to the tournament organizer, and the remaining 45 percent distributed among the 32 teams based on their Valve Regional Standings rank and Major performance.
At the same time, Valve mandated an automatic 50-50 split between each team and its players. Before this, a player's cut from the team's items had been determined through negotiation with his organization.
Once the stickers hit the market, dynamic pricing quickly left many fans unable to afford the most desirable items. Whereas before, they could spend a few dollars on capsules for a shot at a rare sticker — even if it was just for the thrill of gambling —, they now had to pay considerable sums for the most popular items. The high cost of entry pushed many regular players out of the market and sharply reduced the global trade volume for Major items.
Aurora founder Valerii Kharitonov was one of the first to raise the alarm. "It’s by far the worst Major in terms of sticker sales, and the situation definitely isn’t going to get any better," he wrote on Telegram on June 3.
During our reporting, HLTV spoke with several organizations that competed at the IEM Cologne Major across different stages. Many declined to share their sticker revenue because of a confidentiality agreement signed with Valve.
One of the teams to exit the Major in Stage 1 told HLTV that they had made approximately $60,000 (or $120,000 if you consider the same amount went to the players under the new 50-50 system) from the sale of items. This pales in comparison to the figures from Budapest, where Contender sticker capsules made around $600,000 (before any split with the players). A Stage 2 organization reported earning just over $120,000 from Cologne so far.
"This is a catastrophe for the CS scene," the Stage 1 organization told HLTV.
No sooner had Valve released the Cologne Major stickers than Moritz "Askadar" Straube understood the huge wave of trouble that was about to hit the scene.
"Instantly, from the first moment, I knew this was going to be a disaster," the SINNERS co-founder told HLTV.
The update put a damper on the Czech organization's excitement after it had finally made the Major, more than six years after entering the game with a local lineup. SINNERS had been the last team to qualify for Cologne, locking down Europe's 17th spot following FaZe's loss to BIG in HLC Belgrade PRO grand final.
It was the moment SINNERS' management — as longtime Counter-Strike fans and players themselves — had been waiting for: the chance to immortalize the organization in the game. It was also meant to be the financial windfall that would help them break even after years in the red and eventually scale up operations.
"As euphoric and happy as we were, and as many tears we shed that we had finally made the Major, that was pretty quickly squashed when we saw all this, and we were, like, 'This is shit,'" Askadar said.
The new sticker system upended everyone's projections. Contracts had been drafted around the pre-existing model, with salaries and bonuses negotiated accordingly. The expectation was that Cologne would, at the very least, match the payout from Budapest. But given the level of prestige attached to the event and the hype surrounding many teams, it was not out of the realm of possibility that it could be the most lucrative Major since Shanghai.
"You based your calculations on something that was obvious to you because it had been like this for close to a decade at this point," Askadar noted.
"And now, for the first Major that you make it to, they change everything, and you're completely screwed financially, from the stickers at least. It's disheartening, you know?"
Another Stage 1 organization, which asked to remain anonymous, made a significant investment in a player with a view to making the Major, hoping that it would recoup most of the money it had spent on the transfer with the sticker payout. That expectation has now collapsed entirely.
"Of course, sticker revenue was never fully predictable; no one knew exactly how much money would come in at the end or if you qualified," a representative from the organization told HLTV.
"But if you qualified for a Major and received that revenue, you could build around it. You could invest in infrastructure, develop young talent, strengthen your organization, and also support higher player salaries. That opportunity has now largely disappeared."
By mandating a 50-50 split between organizations and players, Valve rendered the wording of many contracts ambiguous at best and void at worst, but on average, it's players who have benefited most from the change.
"In some cases, I think you're going to find teams going to players asking them to pay back the money that Valve has sent them," 100 Thieves' Head of Operations Graham "messioso" Pitt said on 'Come Here' in May.
"Because if they didn't have a split in their contract, the team will now feel entitled to the money that has been given to them that shouldn't have been given to them.
"And then in other cases you're going to find players who are saying, "I've got my Valve money. Now, I need your part of the Valve money.'
"This can go both ways, in all honesty."
The timing of the update could not have been worse. With only weeks to go before Cologne, it became an unnecessary distraction for some teams and disrupted practice.
And while the Major is now in the rearview mirror, everyone is still trying to figure out how to navigate this new system — one that could change again in unpredictable ways before the next Major.
"Valve changing the rules like that has also made it so now we need to take into account that it can happen again in the future," Daniel "Vorborg" Vorborg, the co-CEO and co-founder of player agency UNCORE, told HLTV.
"In some of the contracts we are negotiating right now, we are negotiating what the situation looks like both in the current system of stickers and if it should revert to a system similar to what we were used to."
Uncertain future
There is a feeling of anxiety and apprehension among most people HLTV spoke with for this article.
On June 22, Gaimin Gladiators pulled the plug on their CS division, citing "recent changes to the Major ecosystem and revenue structure." Other organizations at a tier-2 level might follow suit, given Cologne's low payouts and the continued uncertainty around what comes next.
"The stickers are what keep the dream alive," an organization told HLTV. "You invested for years because if you made it to a Major, that was supposed to pay for everything. You kept chasing that carrot."
Askadar, the SINNERS co-founder, said: "A question for everyone is: Do we want to continue in this ecosystem, where the biggest goal you want to reach is really just another tournament?
"I think everyone in tier-2 needs to ask themselves this question. Because what's the point if there's no financial upside on the other end?"
Askadar estimates that SINNERS spent between $25,000 and $35,000 on flights and hotels during the first quarter of 2026 to play LAN events and have a shot at qualifying for the Major. Like many other organizations, they were playing by the rules laid out when Valve put an end to the partner leagues and set up an open ecosystem.
"For a small organization, that is a ton of money," he noted. "We were, like, 'We want to make the Major, and we have a shot here. Let's travel as much as we can and go to all these tournaments. It's fine, we're going to make the money back [if we qualify].'"
"Well, we're not."
The general sentiment is that the gap between elite organizations and the rest will only widen if the sticker payouts remain this low.
Smaller organizations, whose business models rely heavily on Major items, will struggle to stay afloat. The new payout structure, which rewards performance, will also impact how organizations will invest moving forward.
"Previously, being the worst team at the Major, provided that you also paid the lowest salary at the Major, was a great spot to be at," Vorborg explained. "It will be less desirable moving forward.
"That might seem like a good move, rewarding the best teams the most, and I am not saying it is not. But it does definitely remove a large part of the carrot that kept tier 2-3 organizations investing into potentially making the Major."
Meanwhile, the biggest organizations will survive because of their diversified revenue streams, but not without cost-cutting.
Gone seem to be the days of seven-digit transfer fees in Counter-Strike as organizations are becoming more risk-averse. A salary correction for players, several people noted, looks inevitable, though it may take a few years for many existing contracts to be renegotiated.
Many expressed hope that Valve will be forced to revise the sticker system before the Singapore Major. If nothing else, because its own proceeds from Cologne have taken a significant hit compared to previous Majors. What that change might look like is anyone's guess at this point, but a return to capsules seems unlikely, given the regulatory and legal scrutiny Valve has faced over loot boxes in recent years.
"In the past we shipped team and player autograph stickers in capsules," Valve said when releasing the Cologne stickers.
"While this approach was popular, we've heard feedback that players might prefer to purchase stickers directly. Additionally, players in certain regions cannot purchase sticker capsules. So we're exploring alternatives that allow all players to participate."
Perhaps the gravity of the situation calls for deeper reflection — on how stickers came to be treated as a guarantee rather than a bonus, inflating salaries and transfer fees to disproportionate levels; and on the disconnect between Valve and the competitive scene, which will inevitably push more organizations out of the game.
All this poses a threat to the diversity of Counter-Strike's esports ecosystem. A strong tier-2 space is essential to promoting CS as a global game and feeding new talent into the scene. A representative for a tier-1 organization said he fears CS could follow in the footsteps of the Dota scene, where funding has dried up and sponsorship opportunities outside of betting remain limited.
A month on from the Cologne final, there's still no word on a sale, which has historically been a big driver of revenue. Sticker sales have nearly ground to a halt: one Stage 1 team told HLTV that it's earning around $100 a day.
For all the hype that the Major generated and the viewership records that it shattered, many are struggling to see any silver lining amid the dark clouds looming over the scene.
"It was a fantastic Major," Askadar said. "But outside of it being Cologne and 'The Cathedral', the mood was pretty tame.
"I think everyone saw that this is bad. And there's really nothing Valve can do at this point that is going to make it better."
Gaimin Gladiators
BIG
Johannes 'tabseN' Wodarz
Jon 'JDC' de Castro
Josef 'faveN' Baumann
Benjamin 'blameF' Bremer
Gleb 'gr1ks' Gazin
Sebastian 'xenn' Hoch
100 Thieves
Nicolai 'device' Reedtz
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Jack 'Gizmy' von Spreckelsen
William 'sirah' Kjærsgaard
Alex 'poiii' Nyholm Sundgren
Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander
Falcons
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
René 'TeSeS' Madsen
Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov
Maksim 'kyousuke' Lukin
Danny 'zonic' Sørensen
FaZe
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken
Helvijs 'broky' Saukants
Jakub 'jcobbb' Pietruszewski
Dominik 'GruBy' Swiderski
Graham 'messioso' Pitt
SINNERS
Sebastian 'beastik' Daňo
Max 'SHOCK' Kvapil
Mădălin-Andrei 'MoDo' Mirea
Kamil 'kisserek' Banak
Jordan 'stressarN' Manevski
Jakub 'Bfull' Kokoška
Aurora
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş
Özgür 'woxic' Eker
Jimi 'Jimpphat' Salo
Damjan 'kyxsan' Stoilkovski
Ali 'Wicadia' Haydar Yalçın
Ashley 'ash' Battye
Daniel 'Vorborg' Vorborg
Vitality
Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan
William 'mezii' Merriman
Rémy 'XTQZZZ' Quoniam