ESL One Bangkok 2024: How successful was the return of top-tier Dota competitions to Thailand?

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ESL One Bangkok 2024, the last major Dota 2 tournament of the year, wrapped up last weekend in Thailand. The event attracted top teams like Team Falcons, Team Liquid, Team Spirit, and BetBoom Team, but it was the up-and-coming PARIVISION squad that took home the win. 

ESL One Bangkok 2024 marked the first large-scale Dota 2 LAN tournament in Thailand since the GESC: Thailand Dota 2 Minor in 2018. The event was a huge success, bringing in top teams like Team Liquid, The International 2024 champions, and Team Falcons, who had an outstanding season and bagged six million-dollar tournament wins. 

But the real surprise of ESL One Bangkok was PARIVISION, who shocked everyone with their dominant performance in Thailand. This was especially impressive since PARIVISION had only just returned to the professional Dota 2 scene after a two-year break.

The team was put together just two months before ESL One Bangkok 2024, with a core made up of No[o]ne, DM, and other Eastern European players. They dominated the group stage, going undefeated. In the playoffs, they took down AVULUS and BetBoom Team before beating Team Liquid 3-1 in the Grand Final. This victory marked the biggest win in PARIVISION's history.

ESL One Bangkok 2024 Viewership Statistics

The Team Liquid vs PARIVISION Grand Final was the most popular match of the tournament

Given not very convenient time zone for European audience, the viewership numbers for ESL One Bangkok 2024 were expectedly lower than those for ESL One Birmingham 2024, the previous tournament in the series. Total watch time dropped by 35.3%, and peak viewership fell by 14.9%. The average number of viewers across all tournament streams was down 29.5%, averaging about 103,200 viewers.

A similar trend can be seen when breaking down the stats by language. English-language streams saw a 35.9% decline in average viewership, while Russian-language streams dropped by just over 11%. Even though three Eastern European teams made it to the top 4, including the champion, viewership for the Russian-language broadcasts still saw a significant decrease.

Here’s an interesting fact: the average number of viewers on Thai-language streams during ESL One Birmingham 2024 was actually higher than during the homegrown ESL One Bangkok 2024. In fact, even the ESL One Bangkok qualifiers drew more local viewers than the tournament itself. This can mostly be attributed to the underwhelming performances of Southeast Asian teams, many of which didn’t even make it out of the group stage.

The only major language that saw a slight uptick in viewership compared to the Birmingham event was Vietnamese. There was also a small increase in viewers from Italy.

ESL Pro Tour tournament comparison in 2024

One standout was the growth on Kick: the average number of viewers on the green platform tripled compared to the ESL Pro Tour event in the spring. Several factors contributed to this boost: first, official Spanish-language broadcasts from the ESB studio were introduced on Kick. Second, the number of community casters on the platform increased, with creators like Armel, Karl, and other Southeast Asian content creators. In total, ESL One Bangkok 2024 saw an increase in the number of channels covering the event, with most of the new ones appearing on Kick.

Regarding the channels, the main audience for ESL One Bangkok 2024 came from the official dota2_paragon_ru and esl_dota2 channels, though the latter’s Average Viewers dropped by almost 50% compared to the Birmingham tournament. Meanwhile, the audience for the ESL Dota 2 YouTube channel remained fairly stable. A noteworthy mention is pro player RAMZES666, who provided Russian-language coverage: he ranked in the top 5 for Average Viewers and became the most popular community caster of the tournament.

After the event in Thailand, teams will take a short break before the next major tournament, FISSURE PLAYGROUND Belgrade 2025. Looking ahead, 12 tournaments with a $1 million prize pool are already planned for 2025, not counting The International and Riyadh Masters. The number of tournaments is on the rise, and the schedule is getting packed, with four million-dollar events scheduled for November 2025 alone.