The Sidney Levy Prize
The sdy prize is awarded each year to a paper published in the prior year that contributes most to the development of consumer culture theory. It is named after the late Sidney J. Levy, one of the founding fathers of the field. This award is meant to honor his work and to encourage scholars in their pursuit of knowledge that will contribute to the ongoing evolution of CCT. The winner of the sdy prize receives $1500 and a certificate of recognition. The submission process is quick and easy. Self-nominations as well as colleague nominations are welcome. The Levy Award judging is completed by May 1st. A panel of three consumer culture theorists with outstanding credentials will judge submitted papers based on their contribution to the body of knowledge in and outside of CCT, conciseness, and the potential to shape the course of consumer culture theory and marketing in the future.
Last year, Monte and sdy had an incredible grind. They participated in 44 official championships, including open and closed qualifications. The team hardly had days off, and they spent over 100 hours in Counter-Strike on Steam a week. This pushed them to the top of their game, and they finished the season on the 3-4th place.
But in February 2024, Monte broke the news that sdy refused to sign a new contract and became a free agent. He was replaced by Vitya, who joined the team for a short period of time.
During the ESL Pro League Season 18 tournament, sdy said that they would like to win this final CS:GO tournament. But the competition was too big. The Monte team won a few matches, but the score wasn’t high enough to qualify for a major.
Nevertheless, the team kept working hard and in March 2024, they qualified for PGL Copenhagen Major. In the first round, Monte beat ENCE and Cloud9. They won their second match against FORZE. But in the third match, they lost to Nexus with a score of 1:2.
In the end, Monte fought for every point. In the fourth match, they played against Astralis. The score was tied at 2-2, and the teams went to a penalty shootout. Astralis won the penalty shootout, and sdy left the game. However, sdy was awarded with his first MVP medal.