Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Grand Final Viewership Stats

Counter-Strike’s first Chinese Major, the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, came to a close with Russian organization Team Spirit defeating FaZe Clan to take home their first Major championship. Viewership for the grand final reached 1.33M Peak Viewers, a low but expected outcome for the China-based tournament. The event’s scheduling was inaccessible for many European and American fans due to time differences, leading to low viewership from these key audiences compared to past Majors.

While results are largely finalised, these viewership statistics may be updated in the coming week. Our statistics also exclude Chinese livestreaming platforms, due to the unreliability of publicly accessible data on these sites. For more details on how livestreaming performance for Chinese platforms is calculated, explore our dedicated article.

Although the event was unable to maximise these crucial audiences for Counter-Strike, other regional audiences stepped up to the plate to consolidate a sizeable total viewership. Perfect World are one of China’s largest online games operators, and their first Counter-Strike Major is a crucial step forward for the franchise in Chinese markets.

Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Grand Finals Peak Viewership

Team Spirit and FaZe Clan advanced to the grand final from opposite sides of the bracket. Neither team emerged from the elimination stage without a loss, but they proved their strength in playoffs. For the finals, Team Spirit and FaZe Clan both convincingly won a map each, leading to a high-stakes third map. Ultimately, Team Spirit managed a narrow 13-11 victory against FaZe, claiming their first Counter-Strike Major title.

Team Spirit’s revitalised run in Counter-Strike has been powered by the additions of zont1x and donk, especially the latter. The two joined the roster shortly before the release of Counter-Strike 2, and donk has become one of the game’s star players. He has helped his team to victory at large third-party events like the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024, and now, he has proven himself on the Major stage. The 17-year-old finished the match 69-44 and with over 110 Average Damage per Round, becoming the world’s youngest Counter-Strike Major champion and the event's MVP.

Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Grand Finals Viewership Statistics

In total, the final day of the Major accumulated 3.7M Hours Watched. Roughly 13% of this watch time came from the Showmatch event and the break before the final. The match featured s1mple, pashaBiceps, Zeus, and other famed Counter-Strike players play against Chinese professionals and celebrity guest Zhou Guanyu, an F1 driver who last drove for Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber.

Compared to the final day of the PGL Copenhagen Major 2024, overall viewership metrics are down across the board. This was due to how heavily European and American audiences were affected by the time difference; the grand final of the event began at 10am in the morning for European fans, and after midnight for Americans. The schedule led to marked negative dynamics in languages like English and Portuguese, which includes Brazilian-Portuguese.

While Russian can sometimes lag behind English at Major events, the audience was allowed a chance to shine at the Major and almost overtook English as the event’s most popular language. This audience was less affected than American or European audiences by time differences and cheered for Team Spirit as they claimed victory, leading to a 24.2% positive dynamic in Russian peak viewership.

Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Top Matches By Peak Viewers

Throughout the playoffs stage of the event, viewership continued to climb and climb. In the quarterfinals of the playoffs, The MongolZ’s elimination match helped set a new esports record for Mongolian viewership, and Polish recorded strong results while cheering for local legend Snax. Some passionate regional Counter-Strike audiences managed to watch the event in numbers despite the time difference when watching the event from across the world.

Read also: Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024: The MongolZ exit, but redefine Mongolian esports viewership

As the playoffs of the tournament progressed, it reached 951.4K Peak Viewers for FaZe Clan’s semifinal match against G2 Esports. This match received key attention from both Western and Eastern European audiences, even reaching a higher Russian viewership than Team Spirit’s semifinal against MOUZ. G2 Esports’ player m0nesy is a fan-favourite for this audience too, and hundreds of thousands of Russian fans tuned in to see him perform against FaZe.

Ultimately, the finals of the Major received a considerable viewership spread despite the significant time differences for key audiences. Less affected demographics, such as Russian and Asian fans, recorded strong viewership results at the tournament. The event was a key step forward for the Counter-Strike market in China, and we may see more and more tournaments popping up in the country as Perfect World cultivate Counter-Strike’s market.

Esports Charts will explore viewership statistics at a deeper level, and provide unique insights to the Shanghai 2024 Major’s viewership in the coming week. Keep an eye out for articles covering the event, or purchase full access to the Shanghai Major 2024 to explore the statistics for yourself.