IEM Katowice viewership tumbles amid CSGO’s all-time player record

IEM Katowice 2023 proceeded the trend of decreasing viewership numbers, which comes in the same way the overall game is experiencing an increase in popularity among players.

After the CS:GO period began with fun Premier occasion that drew unimpressive viewership figures, IEM Katowice offered an improved test associated with esport’s current standing as the biggest rival, Valorant, is all about to host its very first worldwide competition of 2023.

IEM Katowice the most iconic activities in the esports calendar, with origins that stretch right back almost 10 years. It had been the very first competition of the season with a crowd, plus it had a $1 million reward pool and 17 regarding the 20 most readily useful groups on earth to attract fans.

But regardless of the buzz surrounding the competition, less individuals tuned in to look at the games in comparison with this past year. IEM Katowice 2023 averaged 234,041 watchers, a 29% decrease from 2022, as the top viewership of 712,534 watchers, hit throughout the final between G2 Esports and Heroic, had been 36% less than last year’s top of over 1.1 million individuals, according to statistics website Esports maps.

This comes amid news that CS:GO is experiencing brand new quantities of appeal globally. On February 11, times following the launch of the Revolution Case, the game hit a brand new all-time player count record with 1,320,219 concurrent players. It overcome the earlier record, emerge April 2020, by around 12,000 players.

Some facets

There had been significant dips in top audiences throughout the English (28%), Russian (38%) and Portuguese (38%) language channels, using the latter partly explained by the Brazilian teams’ battles in Katowice. Even globe No.9 FURIA could maybe not ensure it is at night Play-In Stage after losing to BIG and IHC Esports.

But the biggest decrease took place into the Vietnamese language channels, that have been down 88% in comparison with last year’s top of 155,380 watchers. This really is due primarily to the fact Nimo television, the Huya-owned streaming platform, had been turn off in 14 nations in April 2022 as a result of monetary dilemmas.

FURIA weren’t the actual only real group that underperformed in Katowice. Reigning champions FaZe, who have been within striking distance regarding the Intel Grand Slam, neglected to achieve the playoffs, while Cloud9 could maybe not win an individual match into the tournament.

By comparison, Heroic had been certainly one of minimal popular businesses represented in Katowice, with only 276,000 supporters on social networking, according to Esports Charts.

This trend of decreasing viewership has struck many esports games in 2023 and had been on display into the BLAST Premier Spring Groups, where figures had been down over the board.

The next occasion in the CS:GO worldwide calendar is ESL Pro League Season 17, a month-long competition in Malta with 32 groups and a $850,000 reward pool.