BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 becomes the most popular tournament of the series in a year
On June 11, the CS:GO BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 tournament ended in the United States. It has become the best event in the series over the past year and ranked fifth in terms of Peak Viewers among all CS:GO championships in the first half of 2023. Fans from Brazil greatly contributed to this result.
The BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 was the last major tournament of the first half of the year, after which many teams went on summer vacation. Eight teams, including G2 Esports, FaZe Clan, and Cloud9, battled for the championship title. The winner was the Danish team Heroic, which defeated Team Vitality, the champion of the Paris Major, in the finals with a score of 2:1.
For winning the spring tournament, Heroic received $200K and the right to compete in the BLAST Premier: World Final 2023. This tournament, with a prize pool of one million dollars, will take place in Abu Dhabi in December. Interestingly, Team Vitality, as the winner of the BLAST.tv Paris Major, will also be playing there.
BLAST Premier Spring Final 2023 Viewership Statistics
Total viewership statistics of the tournament
The BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 matches accumulated 9.1 million Hours Watched. The Average Viewers number of the broadcast was 193.7K people, with the Peak Viewers number of 494.1K viewers. For comparison, last year’s BLAST Premier World Final 2022 accumulated only 8.2 million Hours Watched, and the number of viewers for the final tournament of the year was 16% and 25% lower, respectively.
The first semi-final (the most popular match of the tournament) between Imperial Esports and Heroic took place at the same time as the decisive match of the UEFA Champions League, the main international European tournament in club football. And because of this (as it seems) the CS:GO championship missed several tens of thousands of hours of watch time.
Peak concurrent viewership during the first map reached 367K viewers, while the peak of the second map was almost 30K viewers less.
Such a dynamic is not usually seen in such an important series, especially considering that Imperial, one of the most popular teams in Brazil and the whole world, played in the semi-finals of a major international tournament for the first time in a while. For example the peak of the second map in Imperial vs. G2 confrontation (at the same tournament) turned out to be almost 20% higher than the first map.
It is noteworthy that the BLAST’s peak was reached at the end of the third map, which ended shortly after the end of the football match. Focusing on the figures and the overall dynamics of the tournament, we can say that due to the Champions League, BLAST Premier lost about 82K Hours Watched, i.e. the watch time of Imperial vs Heroic series could be 5.6% higher, and the total HW of the entire tournament could be 1% higher.
The most popular match of the Spring Final 2023 was the semifinal showdown between Heroic and Imperial Esports. Interestingly, the Danish and Brazilian team's match drew 136K more viewers than the Grand Final. This was made possible by the active engagement of Brazilian fans on Gaules' stream.
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Most popular BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 teams by Average Viewers
The most popular team of the tournament was Imperial Esports, as it surpassed other teams in terms of the total Hours Watched and Average Viewers number per match. Both finalists and other tournament participants also made it into the Top 5 in these categories.
English became the most popular language for the Spring Final 2023 broadcasts, accumulating nearly half of the total Hours Watched of the entire tournament. Meanwhile, Portuguese is the leader in terms of Peak Viewership. As for the distribution of the audience across platforms, Twitch generated five times more Hours Watched than YouTube streams.
More detailed information about the tournament can be obtained from our dashboard, which provides access to statistics on teams, platforms, channels, languages of broadcasts, and other useful data. Additional analytics can be purchased on the coverage page.
Comparison With Other Tournaments
The BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 has become the most popular tournament of the series in the past year, surpassing all the fall stages of 2022, as well as the BLAST Premier World Final 2022. It has also ranked fifth in terms of Peak Viewers among all tournaments in the discipline in the first half of 2023, trailing only behind the ESL Pro League Season 17, IEM Rio 2023, the IEM Katowice 2023, and BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023.
Most popular CS:GO tournaments in the first half of 2023
Several factors influenced the viewership statistics of the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023. Firstly, the successful performance of Imperial Esports, one of the most popular teams in the CS:GO professional scene, even though it doesn’t often please their fans with good results. Matches involving Imperial Esports gathered the most viewers during the tournament.
It is worth noting that the audience reach of the Spring Final 2023 could have been even greater if other popular clubs had participated in the tournament. For example, Natus Vincere, one of the most popular organizations in esports, could have made a significant contribution if it wasn't for Visa issues.
The most popular seasonal tournament in the BLAST Premier series is the Fall Finals 2021, which amassed over 17 million Hours Watched and drew 861.3K Peak Viewers. The match between Natus Vincere and Team Vitality attracted such a large audience.
After a short summer break, the BLAST Premier series will resume with the fall season. Traditionally, it will consist of three stages: the group stage will be played in July, the European and American Showdown stages will take place in October, and the Fall Final 2023 will be held in November. By that time, all the participants of the BLAST Premier: World Final 2023, the season's final tournament, will be known.
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