The coronavirus pandemic has brought rather big problems to the DreamHack tournaments, with some of them even getting canceled. Replacing them were the online competitions, with the last of them being DreamHack Masters Spring. We will tell you just how this change of format has affected the event.
First, we should note that this tournament was a replacement for the canceled DreamHack Masters Summer. The latter was supposed to mark a return of the esports festival to the Swedish city of Jönköping, but this idea never came to be.
Like many other events, DreamHack Masters Spring was divided into four regions: Europe, North America, Oceania and Asia. Each of these had its own specifics regarding the format of the event, affecting the popularity results of the tournaments accordingly.
Peak viewers-wise, DreamHack Masters Spring 2020 Europe was the most popular out of four competitions. The tournament of the "Old World" has managed to reach the mark of 276 thousand viewers on the final match between BIG иand G2. Meanwhile, the Asian competition had the worst peak viewers indicators among all regions, gathering only 14 thousand viewers at the TyLoo vs. VG.
As for the average viewers-based popularity of the tournaments, DreamHack Masters Spring 2020 North America comes out at the top, and for some good reasons.
Perhaps the main of those was the simultaneous presence of FURIA Esports and MiBR teams in the same group. These particular teams tend to bring tournaments a plenty of views thanks to the Brazilian fans. At the same time, an encounter between them is nothing less than a feast for the Brazilian esports fans. This is also indicated by the top most popular matches of the region: each of them having featured either FURIA or MiBR.
It is worth comparing events with the previous tournaments of the Masters series as well. The most recent of these, taking place before the quarantine, were the DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019 and DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019.
Overall, the state of things is more than positive – both for the average and peak viewers. This shows that switching to an online format has not disappointed the audience, as the latter is ready to spend the time on such events. The esports scene becomes all the more important during the times when the traditional sports are effectively defunct.
MiBR is the most popular team in the series in terms of average viewers. The performance of Brazilian players was able to gather 183 thousand viewers. Following them was FURIA Esports, also representing Brazil. Closing the top 3 was the roster of Natus Vincere, which has reached the mark of 152 thousand viewers.
This is yet another reminder that the Brazilian viewers are one of the most important groups among the CS:GO fans. The fans from Europe and the CIS can be seen as no less important – as opposed to the far less active Asia and Oceania.
