Over 1 million concurrent viewers watch $500,000 esports championship
The ESL's grand finals event in Katowice, Poland drew over one million concurrent viewers for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, and StarCraft 2.
As the above infographic shows, ESL's Intel Extreme Masters in Katowice was not only a success, it showcased the continuing trend of esports growth--not only breaking several of ESL's own viewing records, but also proving to be one of the most viewed professional gaming events of all time. And combining this with concurrent viewers across Asia, over 1 million people tuned in to watch the tournament
The break-neck pace of growth is exemplified by the League of Legends finals between South Korea's KT Rolster Bullets and Europe's Fnatic, setting a new record for the most viewed single match in ESL history with 511,000 concurrent viewers tuning in on Twitch (which does not include Asia), a whopping 69% growth over the previous record set at IEM Cologne just five months ago.
"It was only six or seven years ago that we were happy to see 12,000 concurrent online viewers on a single match," said ESL's Director of Progaming Michal Blicharz. "We had 12,000 watching matches live in the flesh in Katowice and hundreds of thousands online. This growth is simply mind blowing."$508,000 in prize money was given out to competitors including Counter-Strike champions Virtus Pro, League of Legends champions KT Bullets, and StarCraft 2 winner Kim 'sOs' Yoo Jin who took home $100,000 in a winner-takes-all tournament.
For even more in-depth esports analysis, read the full breakdown on onGamers.com.
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