Intel Extreme Masters begins its Counter-Strike 2 journey with another edition of the iconic event series, IEM Katowice 2024. One of Counter-Strike’s current longest-running event series and a mainstay for the international circuit, 24 teams from across the globe will compete for a chance at the $1M USD prize pool. The event begins today, on January 31, and is the first IEM event of the year, and one of two IEM 2024 events to feature a $1,000,000 prize pool alongside IEM Cologne.
Last year at the Spodek Arena, the IEM Katowice 2023 event was the second event in the series’ past 5 to not reach more than 1,000,000 concurrent viewers. The 2024 will be hoping to enjoy a boost from Counter-Strike 2’s release to boost its popularity.
The winners of the Polish event will qualify for both the IEM Cologne 2024 event as well as the BLAST Premier World Final, and take home $400K in prize pool. Some of the best teams from around the world are invited to the event: G2 Esports, FaZe Clan, Team Vitality, NAVI, and more. Below, you will find all teams competing in the event and their respective groups.
- Group A: FaZe Clan, Team Falcons, NAVI, Complexity
- Group B: Team Vitality, G2 Esports, Monte, Mouz
The remaining 16 teams will compete through a Play-In stage, which will seed half of these teams from the event. The Play-In Stage is a double-elimination Bracket, with the opening matches being Bo1 and the remaining Bo3. Teams will need to win 2 matches in total to advance to the main event.
Play-In Teams
- Cloud9
- Rebels Gaming
- Eternal Fire
- BetBoom Team
- Heroic
- Astralis
- ENCE
- BIG
- FURIA Esports
- The MongolZ
- Team Spirit
- Apeks
- GamerLegion
- M80
- Rooster
- Virtus.pro
After the 8 teams qualified from the Play-In are equally divided into their respective Groups, to go through another double-elimination bracket. Beginning with the Upper Bracket Quarterfinals with all 8 teams, the 2 teams to make it to the Upper Bracket Final will advance, regardless of winner or loser, and the winner of the Lower Bracket final will also advance. The winners of the Upper Bracket Final will be seeded directly into the event’s Semifinals. Quarterfinals and Semifinals will be played as Bo3, and the Grand Final will be an exciting Bo5 showdown.
As usual, the IEM Katowice 2024 event will be broadcast on both official ESL YouTube and Twitch channels. The tournament will also be covered by various community casters, offering streams in other languages for fans across the world. Below is a list of the official and community casters for the most popular languages.
- English (Official) - eslcs
- English (Official, YouTube) - ESL Counter-Strike
- Russian - csgo_mc
- Brazilian Portuguese - gaules
- Polish (Official) - eslcs_pl
- French - 1pvcs
- German - 99damage
Many other English-language watch parties are available for fans to find the perfect atmosphere for them. ohnePixel, ddkTV, fl0m, olofmeister, and GeT_RiGhT are just some of the channels streaming the event under the Counter-Strike category on Twitch.
IEM Katowice 2023 was available for viewership in 25 different languages across three separate live–streaming platforms. Although the 2023 event did not receive particularly high peak viewership, there was no lack of opportunities or choices for fans to watch the event.
The most popular IEM Katowice event by peak viewership is the IEM Katowice Major 2019. This iteration was the only one to ever be classified as an official Major and receive support from Valve. The event reached 1.2M Peak Viewers as the favourites Astralis earned their 3rd Major championship after beating underdogs ENCE.
The 2023 event was one of the less popular iterations of the event in recent years, but still received decent viewership. IEM Katowice has shown in recent years, such as at the 2022 event, that it does have the potential to reach a sizeable peak viewership, and may be able to reach these heights again this year. Track the viewership performance of the Polish Counter-Strike event as it proceeds with the power of the Esports Charts viewership database on its tournament page, which will be updated throughout the event.
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