Counter-Strike’s return to China becomes biggest CS2 event in the country

The recently concluded Intel Extreme Masters Chengdu or IEM Chengdu has become the biggest local CS2 event in the country and won big in the viewership ratings.

Based on data from global esports statistics provider Esports Charts, IEM Chengdu 2024 recorded over 366,000 peak viewers during the Grand Final between MOUZ and FaZe Clan. The latter eased to a 2:0 win to continue its amazing run this year, with all its placings at S-Tier events being phenomenal and championship-caliber.

The IEM Chengdu 2024 finished within the top five in terms of watch time for CS2 competitions so far this year. It was also the most popular tournament in the game held in China, with the previous record holder being the StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7 which saw a peak viewership of close to 244,000.

Three of FaZe’s matches are in the top five most-watched matches. Their Playoffs Day 2 match vs Astralis also garnered 327,993 peak views and is at second place, while the FaZe vs Liquid Playoffs Day 1 match got over 321,000 peak views and is at third place.

The MOUZ vs G2 match at Day 3 of the playoffs meanwhile, is in fourth place with over 286,000 peak views, while MOUZ and FURIA’s Group Stage Day 1 match peaked at 253,000+ viewers.

Meanwhile, FaZe is also the most popular team in IEM Chengdu, clocking over 164,000 average viewers during the week-long Major. This was followed by FURIA, which had close to 163,000 average viewers.

At third place is MOUZ, with close to 160,000 viewers, while Team Liquid had over 145,000 viewers. At fifth is Astralis, with over 140,000 viewers.

Esports Charts also noted that Portugese was the only major language that saw a rise in IEM Chengdu’s viewership, in part because of FURIA’s presentation.

“Among other languages, English, Russian, and Ukrainian all saw falls in average viewership for different reasons. With renowned sides like Natus Vincere, Team Vitality, Complexity Gaming, M80, and Monte missing, a large chunk of the audience base has fewer reasons to catch the action live,” Esports Charts noted.

The event is only one of two major events to be held in China, the other being the Perfect World Shanghai in December.

Data from Chinese streaming platforms are not included in the computation, due to the unreliability of numbers from the said platform.

More esports tournament data may be accessed through the Esports Charts website at escharts.com.