Counter-Strike 2’s new round win limit reduced IEM Cologne 2024 group stage watch time compared to last year

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The ongoing IEM Cologne 2024 is one of Counter-Strike’s most popular yearly tournament series. The Group Stage of the event has concluded, with the teams participating in the playoffs stage decided. Although average concurrent viewership of matches has remained stable compared to last year, but the 2024 iteration has received a much lower watch time than last year, due to the new changes brought with the release of Counter-Strike 2.

In total, the four-day Group Stage of the Cologne-based event saw 10.54M Hours Watched recorded. The third day of the stage generated the most viewership, as teams from Group A such as Astralis and G2 Esports faced elimination, and Group B saw the first round of teams eliminated. Watch time for the 2024 event’s groups has decreased by 24.4%, despite average viewership falling only 1.1%. 

The decrease in watch time for the stage comes largely from the fact that the 2024 Group Stage was 12 hours shorter than last year’s. This was because the 2024 saw slightly more matches finish with a rapid 2-0 victory, but also due to the new round win-limit changes in Counter-Strike 2. Rather than playing max 30 total rounds, as was the norm for Counter-Strike, CS2 operates based on max 24 rounds. As viewership for the Play-In stage was particularly poor, the shorter Group Stage for IEM Cologne 2024 helped it to maintain a solid average viewership, although it could not generate the same viewership or peak concurrent viewers as last year. 

In terms of peak viewership, the most popular match of the 2024 event was FaZe Clan’s game against Team Liquid, which decided which of these two teams would qualify for playoffs. Ultimately, FaZe Clan took a 2-1 victory over the North American organization, securing their spot in the event’s quarterfinals.

The Twitch peak for the 2024 event has fallen by roughly 100,000 viewers compared to last year, although the YouTube Live peak has remained stable. Popular Brazilian community caster Gaules now also simulcasts his coverage of Counter-Strike events to his YouTube channel, which has helped to maintain the viewership of the red platform this year. 

Both English and Russian-language peaks have fallen considerably compared to last year, although Portuguese-language viewership is actually on the rise. As we covered for the Play-In stage, Portuguese-language viewership was particularly low compared to last year, but as we entered the Group Stage, Brazilian fans became more invested in the event. 

Brazilian roster of paiN Gaming was one match away from qualifying for playoffs, but fell to G2 Esports at the last hurdle. Portuguese-language viewership was particularly high for their games, as well as FURIA, who were eliminated after just two series. It will be interesting to see if Portuguese-language viewership can maintain its share of the total peaks without a Brazilian team competing in playoffs. 

In terms of the most popular matches of the Group Stage, FaZe Clan were the clear winners, taking both the first and second spots in this ranking. The organization’s match against Team Vitality on day 3 of groups was not as highly watched as their series against Team Liquid, but it still managed to generate 375K Peak Viewers and become the day’s most popular match. 

NAVI’s game against SAW received 355.6K Peak Viewers largely thanks to the roll-over of viewership from people watching paiN Gaming’s match against G2 Esports. Of course, NAVI is one of Counter-Strike’s most popular teams and brings a sizeable viewership to each game, but many viewers for this match were Brazilian fans who were watching the previous game with paiN Gaming, as this match began. There was also a noticeable swell in Ukrainian viewership for this game, but the Brazilian fans outnumbered them. 

IEM Cologne 2024 has had a middling start to its event this year. The Play-In stage for the event was not particularly well-watched, and things have not improved for the tournament’s Group Stage. Viewership remains stable, but does not highlight any specific growth for the esports title’s viewership. The playoffs stage of the event still has a chance to hit a high peak viewership, as many fan favourites like NAVI, Vitality, G2 Esports, FaZe Clan, and more will compete through the stage beginning on August 16. Keep an eye for the viewership statistics of the playoffs on our socials, and with more detailed coverage in our blog posts.