The Lima Major 2023 viewership statistics — languages and channels dynamics

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Esports Charts has prepared a detailed analysis of The Lima Major 2023 (Dota 2). We have compared the tournament with previous Majors, determined the ups and downs of the main broadcast languages, and counted the number of viewers of the most popular community casters.

The Lima Major is the first international Dota Pro Circuit tournament held in South America. Previously, this region had never hosted such major events with top professional players. Nevertheless, the format of The Lima Major was similar to the previous PGL Arlington Major 2022 and ESL One Stockholm 2022, so it is worth comparing it with these tournaments.

The main metrics of The Lima Major seemed to be quite comparable with the previous tournaments. For example, the championship in Peru was behind both tournaments by Peak Viewers, but surpassed the Stockholm Major by total Hours Watched and Average Viewers. The most interesting thing, however, is in the details — the statistics of the individual broadcast languages have changed significantly.

Comparison of The Lima Major with Previous Majors

Dynamics of Average Viewers by day and stage of the three Majors

Comparing all three Majors by day, we can see that they show similar dynamics, although there are some differences. For example, ESL One Stockholm, unlike the other two tournaments, had a slightly lower number of viewers on the last day of the Group Stage. We should remind you that back then, because of the coronavirus and the war in Ukraine, some teams did not make it to Stockholm, so the Group Stage matches were almost irrelevant. The opposite was true for Arlington and Lima, where the last day of the Group Stage was decisive for many teams.

In the Playoffs, the dynamic also repeats itself: the number of viewers gradually increases as we get closer to the finals. In Stockholm and Lima, though, Day 4 of the Playoffs drew more viewers than Day 5, but fewer than the Finals. Why did this happen? Well, the fact is that regions begin to drop off around this stage of the tournament. For example, on Day 4 of the ESL One Stockholm 2022 Playoffs, the last participants from Eastern Europe (BetBoom Team) and Southeast Asia (Fnatic) left the tournament. On a similar day at The Lima Major, the last participants from China (Team Aster), Eastern Europe (Team Spirit) and South America (Evil Geniuses) dropped out. 

Especially the results of teams from Eastern Europe greatly influenced the number of viewers — it is quite enough to look at the results of PGL Arlington Major, where the Russian team Team Spirit reached the Finals and won the tournament. Currently, the Russian-speaking community and Russian broadcasts take a leading position in Dota 2. They often attract more viewers than the English-language broadcasts.

Comparison of The Lima Major and PGL Arlington Major Language Dynamics

Languages viewership dynamics at The Lima Major and PGL Arlington Major

The dynamics of the languages in The Lima Major have also changed dramatically. Compared with PGL Arlington Major, the English broadcasts saw a nearly 39% decrease in Hours Watched — a huge difference if you take into account that English is one of the main languages in Dota 2. The main reason for this drop was a change of a tournament operator. The local studio Epulze was responsible for the English-language coverage of the Lima Major, which didn't reach the same level of popularity and performance as PGL, ESL or BTS. 

The Russian broadcasts also had a drop, but it was only 11.5%. This number cannot be called abnormal, and it can easily be explained by the results of the Russian teams — at the Arlington tournament, Team Spirit became the champion, and in Peru, the best team of the region (the same Team Spirit) managed to reach only 7th-8th place.

The situation with Spanish looks completely different. The fact that the tournament was held in Peru (where Spanish is the official language) greatly increased the number of Hours Watched in this language. Compared to the main event in Arlington, that number increased 146% to record 4 million. Spanish-speaking viewers were especially active in watching Evil Geniuses, which signed a Peruvian lineup before the start of the DPC season.

Dynamics of Official Broadcasts and Community Casting at Dota 2 Majors

A similar trend in languages can be observed when comparing the share of community casting. If we look at the English broadcasts, the share of official broadcasts as a proportion of total Hours Watched gradually decreased from 89.8% to 71.6% from tournament to tournament. In short, more and more viewers watch independent streamers, but studio broadcasts are still more popular with the audience.

In Russian, the situation is similar, but the share of community casting there has long surpassed the share of official broadcasts. At The Lima Major, official broadcasts in Russian accumulated only 22.5% of total Hours Watched. The remaining 77.5% were accumulated on the channels of the community casters. It is clear that home viewers prefer the informal and cozy interaction of their favorite streamer's channel more than watching a template broadcast with a large number of guests.

In Spanish, it's the opposite. The share of official broadcasts only grew from tournament to tournament there, and at the Lima Major it was already a little over 80%, almost twice as many as at the Stockholm tournament. It is worth noting that South America is now one of the fastest growing regions in Dota 2, so this growth is quite natural. Perhaps in the future, when official broadcasts in Spanish will no longer be a novelty, the audience preferences will also change in favor of local community casters.

Comparison of The Lima Major broadcast Channels in English and Russian

Nix once again became the most popular community caster

A more detailed comparison of English and Russian broadcasts shows a clear difference in the share of community casting. For example, Russian streamer Nix accumulated more Hours Watched on his channel than all the official English-language channels combined. He also became a leader by Peak Viewers — his broadcast of the tournament was watched by 135.5K PV. None of the other channels exceeded the mark of 100K PV during the tournament.

It is also worth noting the growth of community casting in English. During the Lima tournament, popular streamer Gorgc accumulated 1.97 million Hours Watched on his channel — 52% more than he had at PGL Arlington Major. This increase in viewership amid the overall language decline only confirms the thesis of a change in the studio's coverage.

Most Popular Teams by Broadcast Language

Each broadcast language has its own favorite team

Broadcasts in different languages tend to gather the most viewers when a local team's matches are shown there. For example, during The Lima Major, Team Spirit was the most popular team on the Russian broadcast — the Average Viewers number at its matches exceeded the 107K mark.

Team Liquid that reached the Finals became the leader on the English broadcasts. Matches of the new Peruvian squad Evil Geniuses were very popular on Spanish-language broadcasts. Fans from Thailand preferred to watch the performance of Talon Esports, and broadcasts in Tagalog (one of the languages of the Philippines) gathered the most viewers during the matches of the Execration team.

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The second major of the Dota Pro Circuit 2023 season is ESL One Berlin Major 2023. The tournament takes place in the capital of Germany from April 26 to May 7, and the Velodrom Arena, with a capacity of up to 12K spectators, will host the final stage.