Five simultaneous matches in the TI11 Group Stage — a decision that ruined teams' viewership statistics

Loading

The International is the major Dota 2 tournament with an insane prize pool, which every professional player wants to win. Teams compete against each other throughout the year in regional DPC tournaments and international majors to ultimately qualify for TI. However, it turned out this year that the teams that competed in the The International Group Stage drew fewer viewers than the far less high-profile championships.

Last year's Group Stage featured four matches played in parallel, but TI11 featured five. Even if viewers previously had difficulties choosing a match to watch, this year, given the inconvenient schedule for most fans, it has become even more difficult to follow the Group Stage of the tournament. This has caused both the overall stage statistics and the teams' personal statistics to drop.

The TI11 Group Stage saw the decrease in Average Viewers by 38% compared to last year. At the same time, the decision to host five concurrent matches in the TI11 Group Stage resulted in lower Average Viewers statistics for many teams than they had in previous tournaments of the season. The following slide illustrates this fact.

For instance, throughout the TI11 Group Stage, OG games were watched by 140.7K AV, which is fewer than the team's results in Riyadh Masters 2022 and the three Majors of the season. Of course, these are quite large tournaments, and OG took top places there and even became champion of some of them. But the prestige of these events is not comparable to The International, the beginning of which Dota 2 fans have been waiting for a year. In addition, PGL Arlington Major 2022 is almost identical to the TI11 Group Stage by Peak and Average Viewers, and the similar results of ESL One Malaysia 2022 are about half as much.

It should be noted that Gaimin Gladiators became the most unpopular team of the TI11 Group Stage, drawing 48K AV at their matches. At the same time, the team' games in all tours and DPC WEU 2021/22 Regional Finals were watched by 70K-92K AV, and, during ESL One Stockholm Major 2022, this metric amounted to 145.9K people. This low Average Viewers result of Gaimin Gladiators in the TI11 Group Stage is directly related to the large number of concurrent matches which, for one reason or another, attracted much more attention from viewers.

Tundra Esports also fell far short of the TI11 Group Stage leaderboard, attracting 65.2K Average Viewers to its matches. It is worth noting that the team's total was higher at eight tournaments in 2022, including all tours and the regional finals of DPC, ESL One Stockholm Major, Gamers Galaxy Invitational Series Dubai, Riyadh Masters and Gamers Without Borders Europe & CIS.

***

The decision to host five matches concurrently was a consequence of the fact that the total number of participants at The International grew from 18 to 20. The organizers found no other way to optimize the Group Stage format and keep it within the allotted days unless they increase the number of concurrent matches. However, the approach to the Group Stage at the next TI simply needs to be reconsidered.

The TI11 Playoffs are played consecutively, and several hundred thousand Average Viewers watch each of them. The tournament still shows the lowest statistics of the last few years, but the teams at least draw their deserved audience.