BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024 Recap — Viewership Milestone, Top Teams, Best Comebacks and More

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The BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024, the first seasonal final of BLAST in 2024, concluded in London this past weekend. The event attracted a significant audience, reaching its peak viewership during the final match and becoming the most popular event in the series since June 2022.

Esports Charts, in collaboration with the betting brand GG.BET, is happy to provide a recap for BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024. This report covers viewership statistics for the tournament and in-game achievements of teams. Esports Charts also extends its gratitude to DATA.BET, a premium provider of esports betting solutions, that assisted in the game statistics collection.

A major storyline of the group stage was the early exit of G2 Esports. The team finished last in their group, largely due to having to play with a substitute. M0nesy could not obtain his visa on time and missed the first crucial game, forcing the team’s coach, TaZ, to step in.

Team Spirit and Natus Vincere were the standout performers in the playoffs, ultimately facing each other in the grand final. Team Spirit emerged victorious with a 3-1 mapscore. This marks the second major victory for the squad in 2024, having previously won the IEM Katowice in February.

The broadcasts of BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024 generated 10.2 million Hours Watched, surpassing last year’s Spring Final by 11.7%. Additionally, the average number of viewers increased by 30.4%, and peak viewership grew by 29.5%. The tournament showed positive growth across all key metrics.

The peak concurrent viewership of the final was particularly impressive: at its highest point, the decisive match attracted over 640,000 concurrent viewers, significantly exceeding our initial expectations for the event.

Several factors contributed to the number. The most important factor was the increased activity of viewers from Eastern European countries, who were supporting NAVI, Spirit, and VP, compared to last year’s Spring Finals. Another factor was the overall increase in the number of channels covering the tournament, including both official broadcasts and community casting in various languages. Additionally, the growth in viewership was influenced by the expansion of multicasting practices and increased coverage of the tournament on YouTube. Although Twitch still accounts for about three-quarters of the audience, YouTube's share in the overall viewership structure has grown slightly.

Among the teams, Team Spirit and Natus Vincere stood out by surpassing 300,000 concurrent viewers per match, the only teams to achieve this milestone. G2 Esports also traditionally attracted a large audience, which would likely have been even larger had they advanced to the playoffs.

Interest in Natus Vincere matches is also evident in betting trends. Even before the tournament began, the Ukrainian team was considered the favorite to win the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024. During the tournament, 24% of all bets were placed on Natus Vincere. Team Vitality followed with 19% of the bets, while Team Spirit, which ultimately became the champion, attracted 16.3%.

Natus Vincere and Team Spirit proved to be the most profitable teams for bettors, yielding returns of 37% and 38% respectively. Team Vitality was a distant third with a 13% return.

Regarding bets on sides, the CT and T sides were almost perfectly balanced. However, this varied across different maps: on Ancient, Vertigo, and Nuke, viewers favored the CT side, while on Anubis, Mirage, and Dust 2, the T side was favored.

There were only two matches featuring major comebacks during the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024, both involving FaZe Clan. In the opening series of the group stage, FaZe unexpectedly struggled against SAW: karrigaN's team was down 2-10 on the first map and managed to force overtime through incredible efforts. SAW's resistance was broken after this, and FaZe secured a confident victory in the series.

The second comeback occurred in a match between FaZe and Natus Vincere. The Ukrainian team was trailing 0-7 on Mirage but managed to rally and finish the map with a 13-10 victory. A significant contribution to this comeback came from the team's sniper, w0nderful.

In Counter-Strike 2, eco-rounds occur less frequently compared to CS, mainly because teams now need to win fewer rounds to secure victory in matches than previously. However, the significance of winning these rounds has greatly increased. At the recent tournament in London, only four teams achieved victories in eco-rounds: FaZe, Team Spirit, Virtus.pro, and Natus Vincere, with each team securing one eco-round win.

Among the teams at BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024, Astralis had the highest pistol round win rate at 75%, but it's worth noting that Astralis played only six maps in the tournament. Team Vitality followed closely with a 66.6% win rate across 12 maps, which underscores their significant performance in pistol rounds.

Regarding bets on pistol rounds, bettors correctly predicted the success of Team Vitality, which accounted for 17.8% of the bets. Fans also favored Natus Vincere, with more than 19% of the bets placed on them. Team Spirit also ranked among the top three for this type of bet, accounting for just under 18% of the total bets.

The most popular BLAST Premier Series tournaments

The BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024 emerged as the most popular tournament of the series in the last two years. It also ranked fifth in peak viewership across all BLAST Premier events; the top position is still held by the BLAST Premier Fall 2021 Finals, which drew over 861.3K Peak Viewers.

The viewer numbers for BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024 could have been higher had Natus Vincere faced a different opponent in the final. Historically, the most anticipated matches in BLAST Premier tournaments have involved NAVI playing against Team Vitality: a clash between top teams that attracts both Eastern and Western European audiences. Team Vitality could have made it to the final, but they were defeated by Team Spirit in the semifinals.

The matchup between NAVI and Team Spirit posed unexpected challenges. The primary issue was that Team Spirit proved to be a formidable opponent for NAVI. In the past year, the Ukrainian team met Team Spirit four times in major tournaments and lost on every occasion, including PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, where NAVI emerged as champions. NAVI's last victory over Team Spirit was more than a year ago, and this historical difficulty significantly influenced the outcome of the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024. In the final series, Team Spirit secured victories in the first two maps of the best-of-five, effectively determining the match's outcome early and prompting many viewers to tune out.

Congratulations to the BLAST tournament organizers for achieving impressive viewership figures for BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024. In our upcoming update, we will provide detailed insights into player performances and highlights from this tournament. Stay tuned for more updates!