At IEM Cologne 2025, a series of concerning and shocking incidents occurred involving crowd microphones that were within reach of the audience. These microphones allowed fans' live sounds to be broadcast during streams, but some spectators used this to transmit offensive and illegal messages.

Offensive Outbursts and Prohibited Content
During the tournament broadcast, a track “Heil Hitler” by Kanye West was played through the microphones—a song banned by law in Germany that could lead to criminal prosecution. Despite the severity of the violation, the individual was not immediately removed, causing outrage among viewers.

However, the real uproar was caused by a comment directed at HLTV commentator Machine during a podcast:

“Did you pick that cotton yourself?”—alluding to a legacy of slavery, this discrimination had an obvious racist undertone.

Outrage on Reddit
The discussion in the Reddit community was intense. A post listing the offensive remarks gathered over 2.1 thousand upvotes. One of the commentators, TheycallmePansyY, did not hold back criticism:

“Absolutely pathetic behavior, ESL needs to get these morons out.”

Another user named YAGNA provided details of the incident:

“Earlier Machine said the merch he's wearing was 100% cotton and this dickhead asked ‘Did you pick that cotton yourself’”

This sent a strong signal to the organizers: viewers are calling for the complete removal of crowd microphones to prevent such situations in the future.

Consequences and Organizational Response
The community is urging ESL to respond immediately:

“Whoever is chucking racist slurs and HH's in the crowd mics will cause TOs to remove crowd mics entirely.”

Virtually all commentators expressed surprise and dissatisfaction with the lack of security measures:

“If that person wasn't immediately thrown out and banned from the event, then WTF are the security/organizers actually doing?”

However, there was no official statement from ESL or the organizers at the time of publication.

Why Is This Important for Esports Tournaments?
Crowd microphones add atmosphere and interactivity to live broadcasts, but it is now clear: they can become a source of toxicity when misused. IEM Cologne 2025 was supposed to be a celebration of CS2 , but fans turned part of the stage into a platform for hate.

This incident sends an important signal: there needs to be a change or strict control over the use of technical equipment, involve audio channel moderation, and establish clear on-site security protocols.

IEM organizers and ESL representatives need to respond to the situation along with the communities. Canceling crowd microphones, implementing special control, or developing zero-tolerance policies for this type of behavior are among the most obvious strategies.

This is not just an incident—it's a challenge for the esports industry, and it's time to prove that ethics and safety are as important as the games and tournaments.