IEM Dallas 2024 sets viewership record as Stewie2k wins on home soil

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Intel Extreme Masters Dallas 2024 took place this year during its usual slot: spreading from the end of May into the beginning of June. One thing different about this year’s edition of the tournament was it became the most popular IEM Dallas event ever and was one of the most-watched Counter-Strike 2 events of 2024.

As we covered in our Group Stage recap article for the event, community casting has been critical for this event in particular. The new wave of broadcasters covering the event brought a significant growth in viewership for the event, as well as activating many language demographics which have been dormant in the past.

The event garnered almost 12 million Hours Watched across just 50 hours of broadcasting time. The event’s most popular match, the grand final between G2 Esports and Team Vitality, reached 823.9K Peak Viewers, far outperforming any other match of the event.

Immediately noticeable within the most popular matches is G2 Esports’ popularity. The team was responsible for 3 of the 5 most popular matches of the event by peak concurrent viewership, and G2 Esports’ popularity was boosted thanks to their stand-in for the event.

G2 Esports’ normal in-game leader Hooxi was unable to attend the event, due to a scheduling overlap with his sister’s wedding, and the esports organization brought in one of North America’s most historic players: Stewie2k.

Although Stewie was a newcomer to top-level professional Counter-Strike in 2015, he quickly rose through the lower levels of competition and earned himself a nickname: the “smoke criminal”. The American was well-known for his aggressive playstyle, gaining attention from both other professionals and fans. He quickly became one of the most recognisable names in North American Counter-Strike, but in 2022 he transitioned away from professional play to live streaming: his personal Twitch channel currently boasts 1.45M Followers.

IEM Dallas 2024 officially marked Stewie’s return to professional play, and many fans were interested to see how the American would perform on home soil with one of Counter-Strike’s current top teams. His presence brought his former teammate, now streamer, tarik to the event, who contributed 62.7K Peak Viewers and was one of the event’s most popular channels.

IEM Dallas 2024’s viewership was on the rise as a whole. The Hours Watched metric recorded a 55.2% increase compared to last year’s event, and average concurrent viewership rose by 75.2%, also helped by a slightly tighter event schedule.

However, peak viewership is where the 2024 iteration of the event saw the most growth. The grand final between G2 and Vitality garnered a massive 155% increase in peak concurrent viewers compared to the most popular match of IEM Dallas 2023. A huge number of viewers tuned in to watch G2 Esports’ lift the trophy in Dallas with an American stand-in by their side.

IEM Dallas did not offer the largest prize pool of any tournament in 2024 so far; both the BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024 and CCT Season 1 Global Finals offered double the prize pool of IEM Dallas 2024, but these events failed to reach even 200K Peak Viewers. What sets IEM Dallas apart from these two events?

The Intel Extreme Masters name is far more ingrained in Counter-Strike history than the previous two events, and the event is part of the Intel Grand Slam Season 5, an event series which spans multiple years and hosts some of the largest third-party events in Counter-Strike. This connection to a larger overall series, as well as the IEM brand being much more recognised within CS2’s scene, helped Dallas to achieve higher viewership than events with seemingly more on the table.

Of course, Stewie2k’s involvement with the event and the storyline of a team with a stand-in going on to win the entire event is more exciting for fans, and something we don’t get to experience often within esports.

IEM Dallas events viewership comparison & most popular CS2 events of 2024

The unique circumstances surrounding IEM Dallas 2024 helped it to not only become the most popular IEM Dallas event on record, but also the third-most popular tournament of 2024 so far. Impressively, the event only fell behind the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 and IEM Katowice 2024, which is one of the most historic events in Counter-Strike’s recent years.

It is a huge success for IEM Dallas 2024 to plant themselves on the map like this, especially to achieve viewership similar to this year’s Katowice event, which often is one of the most popular Counter-Strike events of the year. 

The fairy-tale storyline surrounding IEM Dallas 2024 and Stewie2k made it one of the most unique esports events of 2024 so far. The event will have to try and achieve similar viewership in 2025, likely without the support of such a rare storyline for fans, and try to place itself in a position similar to IEM Katowice within Counter-Strike’s yearly esports calendar.