At the end of August, the main Dota 2 tournament of the year – The International, came to an end. Once again, it broke the prize pool record and raffled off $34 million among the best players on the planet. In addition, for the first time in the history of discipline, the same team was able to raise the Aegis above their heads for the second time. OG became the winner of the competition and two-time world champion. In the finals, it defeated Team Liquid.
Summing up the overall results of the Dota 2 World Championship, it is important to note that many aspects of statistics display significant growth. Major attention should be paid to the main figures: average viewers, peak viewers, and hours watched. Compared to the last year, all of these have shown better results.
The mark of the peak viewers simultaneously spectating the game has reached 1 million 968 thousand people – and was reached during the championship's final match between OG and Team Liquid. The difference with the last year's mark equals to 760 thousand viewers. For a more understandable comparison, we should add that this is 63% more than at The International 2018.
When looking at the average viewers instead, this figure reaches a result of 727 thousand people. Compared to the World Championship 2018 this is almost 200 thousand more – which is 37.4% in percentage terms.
The championship got some achievements in terms of hours watched as well, receiving more than 88 million hours total in 2019. The difference from last year's competition reached 23 million units. The improvement in the result is therefore equal to 34% in percentage terms.
We have good things to say about the English-language stream. In a year, its peak viewers mark grew by 376 thousand people. In many ways, this became possible due to certain factors – some of these being the favorable schedule and the incredible adventures of OG.
The Russian-speaking audience's peak viewers mark has grown, but not as much as that of its Western colleagues. Its increase was almost 195 thousand. If only the guys from Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro showed better results and did not leave the tournament in the first days of the playoffs, the record set would have been many times higher. This can be understood due to the fact that the second most popular match for the audience from the CIS (after the finals, of course), was the encounter of these teams within the group stage of the event.
We should remind that these two broadcasts became nothing short of main pillars for The International 2019. At this year’s competition, they generated 80% of the total results of the event. This suggests that the Eastern viewers (not counting China) were not that interested in watching the World Championship.
The statistics gathered show another interesting topic – the platforms. In 2018, it was safe to talk about the total dominance of Twitch. However, this year the service has lost its ground and has a slightly smaller impact on the overall picture.
Today's news don't mark the end of summing up the main Dota 2 tournament of the year. Currently, we are in the process of preparing a special report on The International 2019. In it, our agency will show a lot of additional and interesting data. If you are interested in this particular report, you can contact us.
