IEM Katowice 2023 intermediate results — which team became the most popular in the Play-In stage?

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IEM Katowice is one of the largest annual CS:GO tournaments, featuring the strongest teams in the world. In 2023, twenty-four top teams from different regions gathered in Poland again to compete for the $1 million prize pool. Esports Charts has summed up the intermediate results of the tournament, calculated the number of viewers at the Play-In stage and named the most popular match of the stage.

Play-In Results

Play-In was the first stage of IEM Katowice 2023. Sixteen teams competed in the double-elimination bracket for eight quota places in the Group Stage. BIG, OG, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Cloud9 made it to the upper bracket, while Complexity Gaming, Team Spirit, Fnatic and IHC Esports made it to the lower bracket. These teams will now play in the Group Stage against the previously invited teams.

Viewership statistics of the tournament available here

Group A opening matches:

• Team Liquid vs IHC Esports;

• Cloud9 vs Natus Vincere;

• G2 Esports vs BIG;

• FaZe Clan vs Team Spirit.

Group B opening matches:

• Heroic vs Complexity;

• OG vs MOUZ;

• Team Vitality vs Ninjas in Pyjamas;

• Outsiders vs Fnatic.

The Group Stage will be held from February 4 to 7. We should remind you the participants of this stage play in double-elimination brackets. Only the three strongest teams from each group will qualify for the Playoffs and be able to play in the famous Spodek Arena in front of the audience.

Play-In Viewership Statistics

The Play-In stage matches at IEM Katowice 2023 accumulated nearly 4.8 million Hours Watched and drew 148.3K Average Viewers. Also, the event saw 257.7K Peak Viewers. Most of the viewers were attracted to the match between FURIA Esports and IHC Esports, where the team from Mongolia unexpectedly won.

Comparing the current Play-In stage to the same stage at the tournament last year, we can note a slight decrease in viewership. The Average Viewers number decreased 18%, and the Peak Viewers number decreased 13%. Only the number of Hours Watched increased slightly, but that was because the 2023 Play-In stage lasted a few hours longer than the 2022 stage.

FURIA Esports became the most watched team of the stage with 991K Hours Watched. But Cloud9 became the leader by Average Viewers on the broadcast — 115K people.

The current tournament is still inferior to last year's in terms of the number of viewers. It is a big question whether this situation will change in the Group Stage and the Playoffs. All three Brazilian teams — MIBR, FURIA Esports and paiN Gaming — failed to complete the Play-In stage and were among the first to leave the tournament. Because of this, we should expect a sharp drop in viewership on the Portuguese-language broadcast, and it's one of the main languages in CS:GO. As the experience of the previous tournaments shows, Brazilian viewers actively watch the broadcast only when they can cheer for their teams. But foreign teams do not arouse much interest among them.

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The IEM Katowice 2023 Playoffs will take place on February 10-12 at the Spodek Arena. The winners of the Group Stage will go straight to the Semifinals, and the teams which take the second and third places will start their way from the Quarterfinals. The tournament championship will get $400K and a quota place for IEM Cologne 2023.