NAVI win makes IEM Rio 2024 one of the most popular CS events to be held in Brazil

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The IEM Rio 2024 concluded on October 13 at the Farmasi Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, witnessing a considerable jump in its viewership compared to the previous year. Despite unexpected results and the early exits of favored teams that surprised viewers, the event maintained solid audience reach throughout and ended with a bang.

Superstar team Natus Vincere's win was a big part of the tournament's success, helping seal its spot at the IEM Katowice 2025. The Ukrainian side also took home $100,000 out of the total purse of $250,000, beating formidable sides like Team Liquid, Heroic, and Virtus.pro en route to its victory.

  IEM Rio 2024 – basic viewership stats and most popular matches   

The IEM Rio 2024 reached 710.2K Peak Viewers during the Grand Final between NAVI and MOUZ, which the former won 3:1. This was 26.3% higher than the last edition, no doubt helped by the fact that NAVI, the most popular Counter-Strike side in the world, went one better this year after falling in the Semifinals in 2023.

NAVI also had four appearances on the five most popular matches table, reinforcing its importance to the viewership dynamics of any event it participates in.

This CS tournament also recorded 14.4M Hours Watched and 289.7K Average Viewers over 50 hours of airtime. The former figure was only slightly lower than in 2023 due to the lesser airtime, while the average online viewership jumped by 16.1%.

  Comparing the viewership stats of the last two IEM Rio editions   

Another reason for the improved viewership was that there were a lot more channels covering the competition this year than last. Gaules remained the top streamer to co-cast the IEM Rio 2024, this time splitting duties on Twitch and YouTube as he now multi-streams on both broadcasting services.

Sticking with gaules, his YouTube channel hit a record of 118.8K PV on October 12 during the FURIA versus MOUZ semifinals. The second-most popular livestream also came from this event, with his coverage of the proceedings on October 8 hitting 115.8K PV. A couple of his broadcasts have also ended among his five most-watched streams of all time.

  NAVI reached its tournament final in a row, winning its fourth big title this year   

There was also increased attention from Russian channels like buster and bysl4m, helping the language raise its share in the overall watch time by over 7%. Thanks to NAVI's win, Ukrainian, too, saw a jump in its audience numbers compared to the IEM Rio 2023, with its PV figure witnessing a hike of 141%.

Leb1ga covering the NAVI's Grand Final match was crucial to Ukrainian doing better this time around. He brought significant attention to the match from fans of the country, with his 33K PV making him the language's most popular co-caster at the IEM Rio 2024.

YouTube also increased its cumulative HW share by three times, with English and Portuguese broadcasts not doing as well as last year. The red platform also grew its PV figure by 173.2%, helped by the presence of Gaules and Eastern European channels that showed more interest in proceedings.

There were no surprises when it came to the identity of the most popular side (by average online viewership) at this tournament. However, one prominent esports organization that exited the event early still managed to make it to the top five of this table.

  Most watched CS tournaments so far in 2024   

When looking at Counter-Strike events this year, the IEM Rio 2024 ended as the sixth most watched one. It was also within the top ten by peak concurrent viewership, although it did rank within the top two among all tournaments in Counter-Strike ever held in Rio.

With its fourth big win this year, NAVI has undoubtedly solidified its status as 2024's best team. That the side has managed to be so good without its star player s1mple is a testament to its ability to keep bouncing back, and it remains to be seen how well it does at the BLAST Premier: World Final 2024, the next major event.