Intel Extreme Masters boasts incredible World Finals growth and viewership statistics
ESL released some pretty incredible stats today summarizing the Intel Extreme Masters World Finals which took place March 14th-16th in Katowice, Poland. Among those stats were various shattered records not just for ESL, but for esports as a whole making IEM Katowice one of the most watched esports events of all time. Some of those amazing stats include…
643,362 concurrent viewers across all Twitch streams, 168.97% growth from the IEM World Championship last year.
Over 23 million video plays resulted in 12.6 million hours watched. That’s about 1,444 years of viewer-time and 108.15% larger than ESL’s previous record.
12,000 human beings filled the stands live, in person, at Spodek Arena in Katowice, Poland.
More after the break…
“It was only six or seven years ago that we were happy to see 12,000 concurrent online viewers on a single match,” said Michał Blicharz, Managing Director of Pro Gaming at ESL. “We had 12,000 watching matches live in the flesh in Katowice and hundreds of thousands online. This growth is simply mind blowing.”
If that doesn’t paint a rosy tinted picture of the growth esports is undergoing today, we’re not sure what will.
“Esports events now regularly attract a global audience which rivals cable and broadcast television-sized audiences,” said Stuart Saw, Regional Director, EMEA, Twitch. “Intel Extreme Masters World Championship is one of the industry’s premier events and is a standard-bearer for its high level of gameplay, production quality, and audience engagement. As testament, the traffic achieved during this event achieved a record concurrent viewership for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and one of the highest single-stream concurrent viewer count for League of Legends.”
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