NAVI continued to dominate viewership at the BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024

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The BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024 marked the first step of BLAST’s second series leg of the year. Following the Spring series, the Fall Groups build into the Fall Showdown, and finally, the Fall Final. 2024 has been a strong year for BLAST so far, and as they step into their Fall series for this year, viewership is looking stable and strong compared to previous editions. 

Earlier this year, the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024 was able to reach over 640,000 concurrent viewers, becoming the fifth-most popular BLAST Premier event of all time. This high viewership was achieved thanks to a dream grand final match-up for stirring fans up: Team Spirit against NAVI. Team Spirit made a name for themselves earlier in 2024 having achieved solid results at various events, and even taking some trophies home. NAVI, of course, is one of Counter-Strike’s most recognisable organizations, and their historic legacy draws many fans to their matches. 

The recent BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024 saw NAVI once again take the stage for a grand final, although this time against North American organization Team Liquid. Team Liquid does field some fan-favourite players such as Twistzz and Jks, and their matches against NAVI were watched enough to become the event’s most popular games, with over 315.4K Peak Viewers tuning in. This match-up was clearly the most popular option for fans, with their Upper Bracket Final and Grand Final match both ranking as the tournament’s most popular games.

Although officially a grand final, the match between NAVI and Liquid was not the final match of the entire event. The Fall Groups tournament system saw teams divided into four groups, and each group held their own grand final. Other Group Stage matches, such as G2 Esports vs Ninjas in Pyjamas and Complexity Gaming vs Team Spirit, were their group’s respective grand final matches too. 

The loser’s of these grand final matches, NAVI, NiP, and Complexity, all advanced to the Play-In Stage, where they competed alongside Astralis for the final two spots at the upcoming Fall Final. Ultimately, Astralis and NAVI qualified through the Play-In Stage, joining Team Spirit, Team Vitality, G2 Esports, and Team Liquid, who qualified as the winners of their groups. 

The remainder of the competitors, who failed to qualify directly, will advance to the Fall Showdown event. Critically, this means the teams who held the most popular matches of the Fall Groups will not be able to bolster the viewership of the upcoming Fall Showdown event, as they have qualified directly to the Fall Finals event.

Russian-language and Ukrainian-language broadcasts were also highly important to the overall viewership of this event, and without NAVI or Team Spirit attending the Fall Showdown, this language demographics might follow the Fall Showdown as passionately as they followed this event.

  Peak Viewership of the past four BLAST Premier Fall/Spring Groups events   

Looking towards the peak viewership of the past four BLAST Premier Groups events, the domination of NAVI is clear to see. The organization has consistently been the most popular team of each event, and has maintained this viewership despite not being able to take home the trophy from any of these events. 

G2 Esports also remains highly popular; the organization features some of the esports title’s most popular players, such as NiKo and m0NESY, and with the new addition of the Counter-Strike legend Snax to the roster, the team’s viewership will likely be strengthened by Polish fans, as well as those who have not kept up with Counter-Strike esports in recent years, but remember Snax as a legend of the game. 

At first glance, the peak viewership of the past four Groups events indicates a downwards trend for BLAST Premier events, but this is only one side of the coin. While the 2024 events have not been able to match the raw peaks of the 2023 iterations, our average concurrent viewers data shows that viewership is more stable than this overview provides. 

With BLAST events earlier this year having reached viewership heights similar to those achieved during the pandemic boom, the Fall Finals and ultimate World Final this year may be able to become some of BLAST’s most popular events in years, if the teams who make it to the grand final are poised to bring high viewership with them. Until then, keep up to date on all the viewership statistics of BLAST events and the general Counter-Strike esports scene with Esports Charts.