Brazilian teams drew the largest audience during the ESL Pro League Season 21 - Stage matches

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All eyes are now on Sweden, where ESL Pro League Season 21 occurs. The world’s top teams have gathered in Stockholm to compete for a million-dollar prize pool, and the first group stage has already concluded. Esports Charts has released an interim report on the tournament, revealing that Brazilian teams currently dominate viewership.

This season of the ESL Pro League differs from previous ones in that it features 24 teams instead of 32. As a result, the tournament organizers have made changes to the stage format. For example, rather than a traditional group stage followed by a large double-elimination playoff bracket, there will be two Swiss Stages, followed by a short single-elimination bracket with 8 teams. The dramatic format change is one of the reasons it's difficult to make direct comparisons of viewership between this season and previous ones.

Stage 1 matches of ESL Pro League Season 21 generated a total of over 6,500,000 Hours Watched. The average online audience was 120,167 viewers, with a peak of 254,114. While these numbers are slightly lower than the Group Stage of ESL Pro League Season 20, it’s important to consider the teams involved. Viewership is down because top teams were not part of Stage 1 this year, as they received direct invitations to Stage 2. Teams like Natus Vincere, G2 Esports, Team Spirit, and others were among those invited. In previous seasons, all teams participated in the group stage.

The most-popular match of ESL Pro League Season 21 Stage 1 was between paiN Gaming and Nemiga, attracting 222,118 viewers. This match, held in the fifth round of the Swiss Stage, determined which team would advance and which would be eliminated. paiN Gaming won the series 2-1. As a result, all three Brazilian teams that participated in Stage 1 successfully progressed to Stage 2.

Portuguese emerged as the most popular language during Stage 1 broadcasts, surpassing all other languages in viewership. This was largely driven by the success of Brazilian teams paiN Gaming, MIBR, and FURIA Esports, as well as the Portuguese team SAW — all four teams advanced to the next stage. A significant factor in this was Alexandre Borba ‘’Gaules’’ Chiqueta, the popular Brazilian Counter-Strike streamer, who simultaneously broadcasted on both Twitch and YouTube.

Turkish-language broadcasts also performed well in terms of audience reach, with peak viewership surpassing even Russian-language streams, thanks to Ömer "imoRR" Karataş broadcasts on Kick. The success of Eternal Fire, which advanced past Stage 1, played a key role in this achievement.

Stage 2 matches of ESL Pro League Season 21 will take place from March 7 to 11. Of the 16 teams, only 8 will make it to the playoffs.

First-round matches of Stage 2:

• Team Spirit vs TYLOO;
• Team Vitality vs MIBR;
• Natus Vincere vs SAW;
• MOUZ vs FURIA;
• G2 Esports vs paiN Gaming;
• The MongolZ vs GamerLegion;
• Eternal Fire vs 3DMAX;
• Team Falcons vs Team Liquid.

Follow the progress of ESL Pro League Season 21 on the Esports Charts report page.