IEM Katowice’s CS2 Grand Final was watched by 1 million people

IEM Katowice 2024 was a spectacular CS2 event. This was the first important tournament of the year and it didn’t disappoint. Thanks to prodigies like donk and great teams like FaZe Clan and G2 Esports, a lot of fans tuned in to watch the action.

In particular, the Grand Final had nearly 1 million viewers at its peak, which is not bad at all considering that IEM Katowice was not a Major.

Key numbers

According to Escharts, IEM Katowice had 287.000 average viewers and 972.000 peak viewers. The event offered 85.5 hours of live action and was watched for a total of 24.57 million hours.

These numbers are significantly higher than those of the previous edition, which had 235.000 average viewers and 726.000 peak viewers. However, the viewership of this tournament was not as good as that of those that preceded the 2020 pandemic. Back in 2019, the average viewers number was 397.000, while the peak viewers number was 1.2 million.

Hopefully, in the coming months and years, Counter-Strike 2 will bring back the fans and offer them spectacular tournaments to watch. For now, the game needs to recover much of its player base. When CS2 was first launched last year, a lot of people stopped playing because they didn’t like it very much.

Even the world’s most famous CS2 player, s1mple, decided to take a break. More recently, he announced that he’ll return after the Copenhagen Major, which will end in roughly seven weeks.

📈 Most Popular @IEM Katowice events:

1️⃣ #IEM Katowice Major 2019
2️⃣ #IEM Katowice 2022
3️⃣ #IEM Katowice 2020
4⃣ #IEM Katowice 2024
5⃣ #IEM Katowice 2023

Full @ESLCS #IEMKatowice2024 recap:
👉 https://t.co/UySGzbTXbX pic.twitter.com/dGUTGlg00u

— Esports Charts 🇺🇦 (@EsportsCharts) February 12, 2024

How to increase the audience numbers

Esports events require a bit of patience and some familiarity with the players involved. Given that these competitive games are played by a very young audience, it makes sense why only around 5% of their player bases show any interest in the professional scene.

There are exceptions, of course. Dota 2, for instance, is played by around eight million people. But The International 2023 had 541.000 average viewers and 1.44 million peak viewers. That’s a substantial percentage of the game’s community.

Counter-Strike 2 has all the right qualities to be just as successful, but something needs to be improved in how its events are presented to the public. From past experiences, we know for a fact that people tune in to watch live matches if they are held in a big arena, in front of thousands of passionate fans.

The group stage of a CS2 tournament is often neglected by most fans because it doesn’t offer that. It feels a lot more like an online experience than a LAN event.

Header: ESL