BLAST Premier Fall Showdown 2021 Qualifiers: Viewership Stats and Qualifiers Results

The last regional qualifying tournaments for BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2021 ended last week. The autumn series has undergone several changes compared to the spring one: the tournament operator has established a dedicated qualification for Chinese teams, and revised the regional binding of some events. How did this affect viewership statistics?

Qualifications format: +China, -CIS

Showdown tournaments within the BLAST Premier series are the ones where partner teams compete with lesser-known teams that won dedicated BLAST-licensed championships: the prizes are the spots in the final tournaments of the series.

Compared to the spring stage of the BLAST Premier, the organizers have increased the number of partner qualifying tournaments from seven to eight: China got its own qualification. At the same time, some regions lost their chances to play in the final autumn stage of the championship: for example, the CIS had Winstrike CIS Cup qualification: Team Spirit won it during he spring, and almost made it to the main stage of the spring series, only losing to G2 Esports in the decisive match.

Team Spirit was one of the best teams of BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown, but but now the team has no opportunity to attend the autumn tournament of the series

The TWR Eastern European Masters event was established for (as the name implies) teams from Eastern Europe instead of a tournament for the CIS. However, this tournament did not provide a qualification for the CIS teams, and the only invite was received by the Czech team Sinners Esports.

The rest of the qualifying tournaments practically did not change: only some tournament operators were changed. In particular, the competition for teams from Spain and Portugal was held by E2Tech instead of LVP, and the right to organize one of the qualifications for teams from North America was given to Fragadelphia, not fantasyexpo.

Viewership statistics of qualifying tournaments

Even though there are now more qualifiers for the BLAST Premier Showdown, the series' viewership stats have not improved. Almost all qualifiers turned out to be less popular than the events of the spring series. But on the other hand, the CS:GO audience from South America has become more active: it was the competitions with the local teams that gathered the most spectators.

BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2021 qualifiers statistics

The most successful out of the eight qualifying tournaments that have passed was FiReLEAGUE Latin Power Fall 2021, where teams from Brazil, Argentina and Peru played. The championship became the leader by the amount of Hours Watched (153.7K) and the average number of viewers (6.6K). The tournament also took second place by peak viewers (22.2K), only losing to the Fragadelphia Invitational, whose grand final was simultaneously watched by more than 25.1K people. Interestingly, paiN Gaming and Extra Salt met in the decisive match of Fragadelphia: and the same teams performed in the final of the spring VENN Invitational, and then their match was watched by five times less viewers!

Compared to the spring events, the European competitions dropped significantly in viewership statistics, although the participants were in no way inferior in popularity to the teams that played in the spring (for example, Fnatic played instead of mousesports this time). As a result, TWR Eastern European Masters showed the best numbers out of three European tournaments, where the semifinal between Sinners Esports and BLUEJAYS was simultaneously watched by over 17.2K spectators.

The least popular tournament was the Calyx Dune Cup: just like during the spring series. It is noteworthy that the tournament was held for the teams from the Middle East and North Africa. However, it was the POGGERZ team, which includes players from the Netherlands, Montenegro and Sweden, that made it to the final stage of the BLAST Showdown.

Spring tournaments turned out to be more popular than autumn ones

BLAST Nordic Masters showed quite poor results. It was the most popular out of seven qualifying tournaments in spring, but now it has dropped by almost three times in peak number of viewers, and the average audience has decreased by two thousand people (from 7.8K to 5.9K). Perhaps one of the reasons was the early departure of the most famous teams: ENCE Esports and Fnatic did not even reach the semifinals.

The Fantasyexpo championship showed even worse statistics. In the spring, it entered the top three tournaments by key viewership metrics, but now it has dropped 3.5 times in peak viewership (from 23.1K to 6.5K people), and by three times in terms of the average audience (from 6.5K to 2.1K people).

The drop in viewers' interest in the European BLAST qualifiers was compensated by the competitions with the participation of South American teams. In addition, ESL Pro League Season 14 also dragged over the majority of viewers as it was held at the same time the qualifying tournaments were live, so it will be much more important to compare the statistics of the final stages of BLAST Showdown 2021. The rest of the BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2021 participants will be determined by the end of the week. And the tournament itself is starting on October 12.

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