First day of Riyadh Masters 2024 playoffs: Nix had his most popular stream in six months

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On July 16th, the Riyadh Masters 2024 playoffs kicked off with the first matches. Following the group stage, 16 teams remained in contention for the Dota 2 championship title. The highlight of the day was the eagerly awaited clash between Team Liquid and Team Spirit.

Team Liquid's unexpected victory over Team Spirit surprised many fans. Their last win against the Russian team occurred a year ago during The Bali Major 2023. Since then, Team Spirit had bested Team Liquid four times in official tournaments, including The International 2023.

The most gripping series of the day unfolded between Team Falcons and WBG.XG, requiring all three maps to determine a winner, with Team Falcons securing victory in two of them. In other matches, Gaimin Gladiators defeated Entity, and Tundra Esports outplayed OG, both with decisive 2:0 scores.

Looking ahead, in the upper bracket's second round, Team Falcons will square off against Gaimin Gladiators, while Team Liquid will challenge Tundra Esports. The other teams will continue their campaign in the lower bracket. Notably, Team Spirit faces a critical elimination match against LGD Gaming, where the Chinese team could potentially eliminate the defending champions from Riyadh Masters 2023.

The first day of the Riyadh Masters 2024 playoffs saw a decline in viewer statistics compared to last year's tournament. This was primarily due to the new schedule format. Last year, matches were played consecutively, resulting in a lengthy game day that lasted nearly 16 hours. In contrast, Riyadh Masters 2024 featured two out of four series running concurrently, reducing the total broadcast time to just 10.5 hours.

Both average and peak viewer numbers for the playoff broadcasts were lower than those of Riyadh Masters 2023. The most notable decreases were observed in major languages such as Russian and English. The drop in Russian viewership was attributed to the shift from the Paragon studio, which hosted last year's Russian-language broadcasts, to betboom channels for this year's tournament. This change led to a significant disparity, with Paragon's channel boasting twice the peak viewership and five times more hours watched. However, some of the decline was offset by increased viewership on the Nix channel, the most popular Russian community caster for the tournament, who peaked at 83.5 thousand viewers on the first playoff day, marking their highest viewership since February.

The decrease in English viewership was largely influenced by a shift in primary broadcasting channels. During Riyadh Masters 2023, matches were aired on the prominent ewc channel, while ewc_dota2 and ewc_dota2_en2, less popular channels, served as secondary options. However, for Riyadh Masters 2024, the ewc channel was no longer utilized, and this change contributed to audience dispersion across multiple parallel broadcasts, which did not benefit the tournament.

As the second day of the Riyadh Masters 2024 playoffs nears its end, WBG.XG has eliminated Aurora from the tournament. The results of the remaining two matchups will be determined in the coming hours. For updates on tournament progress and viewer statistics, visit the event's coverage page.