TI12 viewership so far

The International is the most prestigious event in Dota 2, being the world championship of this esport. Every year, the best teams in the world gather together to celebrate and compete for the fans.

Usually, the prize pool of the competition was extremely high. We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars. But this year, Valve changed everything and the resulting prize pool was just $3 million.

However, despite this inconvenience and the fact that Dota 2 only has around 430.000 average concurrent players, it’s pretty clear that this game’s player base is quite mature.

In other esports, the viewership numbers are extremely low relative to the size of the player base. We’re talking about 1-3%. In Dota 2, a community of around eight million people has generated some impressive viewership numbers during the playoffs of The International 12.

.@kiritych can’t wait for the next game! Looking forward to an exciting match against BB Team this Friday ✊ pic.twitter.com/VDZu76QSzG

— Virtus.pro (@virtuspro) October 23, 2023

What the statistics indicate

According to Esports Charts, TI12 has had so far 452.000 average concurrent viewers, and 954.000 viewers at its peak. The most watched match was the one between Team Spirit and Virtus.pro, which took place on the first day of the main event.

It seems that a lot of people were curious enough to tune in and watch the opening ceremony, as well as the matches that followed it. A CIS Dota 2 match that gets watched by nearly one million people from around the world is not something that you see every day.

However, if we compare The International 12 with The International 11, we immediately see that things used to be even better. At TI11, the average number of concurrent viewers was 563.000, while the peak number of viewers was 1.75 million.

Dota 2 clearly is one of the most exciting esports to watch. Even people who stopped playing the game years ago will regularly tune in to watch others play. There’s so much going on in every game that it’s hard to get bored as a viewer.

It’s easy to get frustrated as a player, and we’ve all had to deal with anger or despair at least once in our Dota 2 adventure. But when you’re not responsible for anything, the game is actually fun.

With a bit more involvement on Valve’s part, The International and Dota 2 events in general could be a lot more popular. The game has all the right ingredients. It just needs to be taken care of.

Header: Valve