IEM Cologne 2023 — surprise results and record-breaking viewership rock the group stage of event
The Intel Extreme Masters has returned to Cologne for another year of Counter-Strike. The German city is known as the Cathedral of Counter-Strike and has hosted some of the most legendary and popular events in Counter-Strike history. As we looked at in our Day 2 analysis of the performance of the tournament, the tournament was its most successful start for viewership in the series’ history.
IEM Cologne 2023 kicked off with a double-elimination Play-In Stage, where 16 teams would compete to qualify for the rest of the event and play against the 8 directly-invited teams. As we concluded in the previous piece, the Play-In stage was a highly successful start to the event. Watch time increased by over 10%, despite an 8.6% drop in Airtime, and both the Average Viewers and Peak Viewers metrics saw an increase for the 2023 event.
Of the 16 teams who competed in the Play-In, only eight could advance to the Group Stage. These teams were MOUZ, Fnatic, Astralis, and Monte from the Upper Bracket. The MongolZ, OG, 9ine, and Ninjas in Pyjamas qualified through the Lower Bracket. Of all the teams that qualified through the Lower Bracket of the Play-Ins, none of these teams were able to secure a victory in the Group Stage and were quickly eliminated.
Fnatic and Monte were both eliminated from the double-elimination Group Stage fairly early on: both teams exited the event after losing the Lower Bracket Semifinal. However, Astralis and MOUZ have had better luck. MOUZ took down the titan NAVI early in the Upper Bracket, but they were knocked out in the Lower Bracket Semifinal after facing off against Astralis.
Despite losing their first match of the Group Stage against G2 Esports, Astralis has performed a perfect recovery. They moved through the Lower Bracket matches easily toppling Ninjas in Pyjamas and MOUZ, but NAVI stood against them for the Lower Bracket Final. NAVI and Astralis are some of the most popular teams in esports, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this game was the most-popular match of the Group Stage. After a tight 25-23 victory in Map 1 for Astralis, they managed to convert this into a 2-1 victory in their Bo3 against NAVI.
Of the 22 teams that attended the IEM Cologne 2023 event, only six advanced to the Playoffs. G2 Esports and ENCE are the top-seeded teams, with Team Vitality, Cloud9, Heroic, and Astralis filling up the final spots in the quarterfinals.
IEM Cologne 2023 Group Stage viewership
The 2023 iteration of the IEM Cologne event experienced the most viewership an IEM event in Cologne has received since the series’ conception. The 2023 event’s Group Stage received 13.9M Hours Watched throughout the initial stages of the event, marking a significant increase in watch time compared to last year. Interestingly, the almost 14M hours of watch time amassed by the 2023 event means the Group Stage of the event is already received more watch time than the entire 2019 ESL One Cologne event (12.85M Hours Watched), and the events held in 2017 and 2018.
In terms of Peak Viewers, we already mentioned the Astralis and NAVI face-off was the most popular match of the Group Stage per peak concurrent viewers. What made this match specifically so popular? Well, NAVI did. NAVI are one of the most popular teams in esports and even more popular within CS:GO’s sphere, check out our Teams page for more details.
NAVI came into the IEM Cologne 2023 with a fresh new roster, too. The Ukranian organisation replaced Electronic and Perfecto, two players who had been playing under the NAVI banner for years. Both of them ended up signing with the American organisation Cloud9 and are also competing at the event. Sadly, Cloud9 and NAVI did not meet during the Group Stage: this match-up would have likely been one of the most popular matches of the entire event.
CS:GO fans from all around the world were excited to see how NAVI performed with their new international roster, but their Group Stage exit is surely a disappointment for their loyal supporters. Nevertheless, NAVI’s Lower Bracket run saw them play three matches, and these matches are the most-popular matches of the entire Group Stage per peak concurrent viewers. Although NAVI will not be making an appearance in the Playoffs stage for the event, their popularity and fan support throughout the Group Stage is uncontested.
The Playoffs stage of the IEM Cologne event this year will take place between the 4th and 6th of August at the LANXESS arena. The single-elimination Playoffs bracket sees the six qualified teams competing for the glory of winning an event at the Cathedral of Counter-Strike, $400,000 USD of the $1,000,000 USD prize pool, and qualification for the IEM Katowice 2024 event.
Looking at the data for the Group Stage, what can we predict for the Playoffs? Well, historically the events held in Cologne receive large viewership from Portuguese-speaking and Russian-speaking audiences, due to teams from local regions representing these communities. At the 2022 IEM Cologne event, Portuguese was the most popular language for audiences during the Play-Ins stage. However, the Portuguese-speaking viewership suffered and deteriorated in the Playoffs stage, as no Brazilian teams qualified for the Playoffs.
We may expect to see a repeat of history in this regard. Portuguese and Russian were highly popular languages for the Play-In and Group-Stage of the IEM Cologne 2023 event. However, with no Brazilian teams escaping the Play-In stage the Portuguese-speaking viewership declined immediately heading into the Group Stage. Viewership from Russian-speaking and Ukranian audiences might also decline, considering that NAVI is out of the event already.
This is especially a shame for Ukrainian audiences, which have quickly become one of the biggest in the discipline. At IEM Cologne 2022, Ukrainian barely ranked within the top 10 languages; at IEM Cologne 2023, Ukrainian was the most popular language outside of the big three: English, Portuguese, and Russian. Keep an eye on this, the effect of NAVI’s early exit on Ukranian viewership could be profound.
With NAVI out of the way, Russian-speaking viewership will likely depend on Electronic and Perfecto, who are due to play a Quarterfinals match against Team Vitality, kicking off the Playoffs for the event. Expect viewership to spike for this match as the new Cloud9 roster tests its mettle against one of the best Counter-Strike rosters in the world. Stay up to date on the IEM Cologne 2023 Playoffs stage with our constantly updated statistics for the event.
