DreamLeague Season 21 finishes groups with 6% more viewers than Season 20 on average

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DreamLeague returned for its 21st season on the 18th of September and viewership remains solid for the online Dota 2 tournament. Playoffs kicked off on the 21st and will come to a close this weekend, but before focusing on Playoffs let's take a look at how the Group Stage’s viewership has performed.

The Groups for DreamLeague saw twelve teams from around the globe come together for Bo2 matches in a round-robin stage. The three-day Groups drew in 4.57M hours of watch time, with 158K concurrent viewers watching the event on average.  Compared to Season 20 of the event series, the Average Viewers figure marks a slight uptick for the DreamHack event. 

The match between OG and Team Spirit was the most popular match of the Group Stage, drawing in 188K concurrent fans to the broadcast at peak. The match was the most popular match of September so far for Dota 2, although this will surely be bested as the event progresses to the Playoffs stage and hype builds up for the discipline. 

By the end of the Group Stage, four teams have been eliminated so far. Team Liquid and Talon Esports both exited Group A with no wins to their name, although they did both tie two games. Quest Esports and Evil Geniuses suffered the same fate in Group B, and these are the four teams to have been eliminated so far.

The Playoffs structure for DreamLeague Season 21 features a double-elimination bracket and Bo3 matches, excluding the Grand Final which will be a Bo5. At the previous DreamLeague Season 20 and Season 19, the top-performing teams qualified for the Riyadh Masters 2023 event, which was the largest third-party Dota 2 tournament ever in terms of prize pool. Without the hype of qualifying for such a major event, will the Playoffs stage be able to garner the viewership the previous two DreamLeagues have?

Keep an eye on the action and viewership with our tournament page for DreamLeague Season 21, and watch out for an article covering the Playoffs viewership of the event.