ESL One Birmingham 2024 becomes most watched tournament of the series

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ESL One Birmingham 2024 concluded in the United Kingdom, generating over 11.6 million Hours Watched, setting a new record for the Dota 2 series. This achievement was made possible by the increased average viewership and a greater number of broadcast hours.

Talon Esports, Shopify Rebellion, Team Spirit, and Gaimin Gladiators performed the poorest during the group stage, failing to advance to the playoffs despite demonstrating strong results in the previous season. Conversely, Team Falcons emerged as the standout performer in the final stage. Hailing from Saudi Arabia, the club persevered through the lower bracket and secured a convincing 3-0 victory over BetBoom Team in the grand final. 

This marked Team Falcons' third major tournament win of the year. Previously, Falcons triumphed at BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024 and DreamLeague Season 22, amassing a total of $1.15M in winnings since the beginning of the year.

The ESL One Birmingham 2024 matches generated over 11.6 million Hours Watched, marking an increase of almost 44% compared to ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023. This also set a new record in the series' history. Compared to the Malaysian tournament, the average viewership increased by 17.4%, reaching 146.5K concurrent viewers, making it the third-highest among all ESL One tournaments for Dota 2.

The most watched tournaments of ESL One Dota 2 series

The peak online viewership remained approximately at the same level, with a decrease of just 3.2%. ESL One Birmingham 2024 ranked as the third tournament in the series by peak viewership, trailing only ESL One Birmingham 2019 and ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023.

The most popular match of the tournament was the grand final between Team Falcons and BetBoom Team — 327.2K viewers simultaneously watched it. This match was the only one in the tournament to surpass the 300K PV mark.

There was a relatively small difference in viewership among the most popular matches of ESL One Birmingham 2024, with about a 33% gap between the first and fifth positions in the top list. In contrast, the difference between the first and fifth positions was nearly 51% for ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023. In other words, there was a more consistent interest from viewers throughout the final stage of the tournament during ESL One Birmingham 2024. In contrast, most of the audience tuned in only for the grand final at ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023.

The most popular tournaments of ESL One Dota 2 series

ESL One Birmingham 2024 demonstrated strong viewership dynamics and average viewer numbers, despite being broadcast on 40 fewer channels compared to ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023. There are several reasons for this; one is the more convenient time zone for the English and Russian audience, which are the two main languages in the game.

Another factor is the increase in audience reach not only on primary broadcast channels but also on secondary ones. Organizers were successful in creating a convenient match schedule, ensuring that parallel broadcasts did not compete for the same audience. Additionally, it's important to note that ESL One Birmingham 2024 was the longest tournament in the series, largely due to a series of tiebreakers in both groups.