ESL Pro League Season 18 is off to a good start with Gaules topping Twitch channels in early Fall
On the 30th of August, the 18th season of ESL Pro League returned to the world of CS:GO. There’s a total of $850K USD on the line for teams to fight for, and the league winners will qualify for the BLAST World Final 2023 and IEM Katowice 2024. Group A, the first of four groups, came to an end on September 3rd with four teams qualifying: Team Vitality, Movistar Riders, Astralis, and FURIA Esports.
Compared to Season 17, the Group A viewership for this season has been quite similar, with one exception: community casters are rising. Gaules, a well-known Portuguese community caster, was the most-watched channel of the Group A coverage for Season 18. Not only was gaules the most-watched channel of the coverage, he garnered enough hours of watch time to be the most-watched channel on Twitch for the Group A period.
ESL Pro League Season 18 Group A Viewership
Of all the official broadcasts and community casters to cover the game, Gaules and the official ESLCS Twitch channels were the most-watched broadcasts for the period. In Season 17, ESLCS remained the most popular option for CS fans throughout the initial Group, but this time around Gaules has completely dominated the viewership for the event’s first handful of days.
The reason why Gaules was so hugely popular is in the graphic: FURIA Esports. The Brazillian roster is one of the most beloved teams in the discipline and the Brazillian fan base continues to bring in high amounts of viewership and support their compatriots. Furia’s match against Astralis was the most popular match on Gaules’ streams and the Group A broadcasts entirely. Gaules received 166.5K peak concurrent viewers for his coverage of the match, 213% more compared to ESLCS’ PV for Astralis against Ninjas in Pyjamas.
Overall Gaules outperformed the main broadcast on Twitch. He received 2.3M Hours Watched throughout Group A, 121% more than ESLCS. Not only largely impressive for a community caster to be the most-watched channel for an event, but Gaules also became the most-watched channel on Twitch for this period. His hours of watch time put him ahead of shroud, the second-most-watched streamer with 1.7M HW thanks to his Starfield coverage.
Not only was the power of the Portuguese-speaking audience enough to launch Gaules to the top of CS:GO, but he also managed to sit on the throne of live-streaming on Twitch during the Group A period. FURIA Esports managed to qualify for the Playoffs of the Pro League with a last-chance victory over GamerLegion, who finished second in the previous Major.
Playoffs for the ESL Pro League Season 18 will begin on the 26th of this month and it's surely to be a big one for the event series as Furia continues to bring in massive viewership for the esports discipline. ESL Pro League Season 16 was the most-watched league in the series’ history, with 38.2M HW. The question now is, can Furia drive Season 18 further? Keep up to date on the tournament page, or wait for our articles to update you on the latest happenings in esports viewership.
Detailed Esports data at your fingertips.
Subscribe to & start exploring!
