DreamLeague Season 24: another Team Falcons title and Ramzes' viewership record

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Team Falcons continues to dominate the professional Dota 2 scene: the European squad recently claimed the title at DreamLeague Season 24, marking their third championship win in the series this year. DreamLeague Season 24 broadcasts peaked at over 240,000 concurrent viewers, with several community casters setting new channel records. However, the overall dynamics of 2024 season don't look very promising.

The tournament featured 16 of the top teams from around the globe, including Team Liquid, the winner of The International 2024. However, the season wasn’t particularly kind to European teams: Gaimin Gladiators were eliminated in the first group stage, and both Tundra Esports and Team Liquid were knocked out in the second stage.

By the final stage, only Team Falcons and three Russian teams — BetBoom Team, Team Spirit, and PARIVISION — remained. Team Falcons started the playoffs from the lower bracket, but that didn’t stop them from making it to the final, where they defeated BetBoom Team 3-1 to take the championship.

This win at DreamLeague Season 24 was Team Falcons’ third major victory in the series, having previously won in Season 22 and Season 23. Overall, it’s been an incredible year for the team, who also claimed titles at BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024, ESL One Birmingham 2024, and BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024.

DreamLeague Season 24 broadcasts racked up 16.8 million Hours Watched — about 35% less than Season 22, which had the same format.

It’s worth noting that DreamLeague alternates between different season formats, adjusting the number of teams and, as a result, the number of matches. This directly impacts the league’s viewer stats, particularly the total watch time. More reliable metrics for comparing seasons are average viewership and peak online numbers.

Compared to the previous season, the average viewership for DreamLeague Season 24 streams dropped by 16.8%, and peak viewership fell by 3.5%. One of the main reasons for the drop was the loss of viewers on English-language broadcasts. This isn’t surprising, given that nearly all the top European teams were eliminated in the group stages, leading to less interest from English-speaking audiences.

For English-language streams, the average viewership (AV) dropped by 26.3%. The AV for the esl_dota2 channel on Twitch decreased by about 24.2%, while the ESL Dota 2 channel on YouTube saw a 21% drop. Essentially, it was the official English-language channels that took the biggest hit, while community casters like Gorgc maintained viewership similar to what they had during Season 23.

On the flip side, Russian-language broadcasts saw a surge in interest, as three Russian teams made it to the playoffs. Average viewership for Russian-language streams grew by a couple of percentage points, and peak viewership saw a huge increase of 61.3%. This growth was particularly noticeable on the official channel dota2_paragon_ru, where peak online numbers jumped by 57.7% compared to Season 23. Overall, the share of Russian-language streams at the tournament grew from 30.4% to 39%, surpassing the share of English-language broadcasts.

March's DreamLeague was the most successful in terms of viewership stats in 2024

The strong engagement from Russian-speaking audiences wasn’t just driven by official channels, but also by community casters. For example, former pro player Ramzes streamed the final matches of Season 24, attracting 22.3K Peak Viewers — a new personal record.

In addition to the Russian-speaking fans, there was also a slight increase in viewership from Indonesia and Brazil. Compared to last season, the number of viewers on Kick grew several times over. Key community casters on the platform included Gabbi, benjaz, and Armel. Kick continues to be a popular choice for streamers and viewers from Southeast Asia and South America.

Looking at the trends over the past two years, two opposing patterns emerge: in 2023, the DreamLeague series consistently grew its audience with every new season. However, in 2024, the situation shifted, and now we’re seeing a decline in viewership with each new season.

In 2024, popular Russian-speaking community casters Nix and NS didn’t cover any DreamLeague tournaments, even though they streamed the matches in 2023. Both have mentioned several times that they’re feeling burned out on Dota 2, especially due to the sheer number of similar tournaments.