PGL Major Antwerp 2022: Most Popular Teams and Impact of Community Casters

Last weekend, FaZe Clan won its first ever Major, claiming the title of PGL Major Antwerp, which became the third big trophy for the team in 2022. In our previous article we overviewed general statistics of the tournament, and now it’s time to take a look at the most popular teams and impact of community casters to the viewership of the event.

Most Popular Teams & Regions

For the second Major in a row Natus Vincere became the most popular team of the event, attracting over 828K viewers on average. Let us remind you that s1mple’s squad celebrated the victory in Stockholm, and this time it lost in the final. The second most interesting team to the viewers was FaZe Clan as its matches were watched by 707K Average Viewers.

The top three is closed by FURIA Esports, the most popular team in the American region, whose matches were followed by almost 550K spectators on average. The fourth and fifth spots of the rating are occupied by G2 Esports and Cloud9, which average audience was 487.2K and 285.6K viewers, respectively. Note that NiP and Imperial Esports collected only a few thousand viewers less on average.

Europe became the most popular region of PGL Major Antwerp. On average, the matches of European teams attracted more than 432K spectators. The games of American teams collected almost 15% less on average, and Asian teams were the least watched by viewers of the major as their average audience only reached 134.7K people.

It is also worth noting that European teams have collected 3 times more Hours Watched in total than American and Asian teams combined.

Contribution of community casters

In total, PGL Major Antwerp 2022 matches have collected 68.1 million Hours Watched. At the same time, official broadcasts collected almost 89% of the total, and the contribution of the community casters was just over 11%. For comparison, the contribution of unofficial broadcasts turned out to be much more significant at the last Dota 2 Major: more than 43% of the total watch time.

Gaules was the most popular channel of the event in all respects. The Brazilian streamer hosted the official broadcast of the major in Portuguese and collected 18.4 million Hours Watched with an average online of 158.2K viewers. The peak audience of Gaules was 707.6K people, which became a new record of the streamer.

The leader among the community casters was the Argentine creator goncho, who collected 870.2K Hours Watched. The average audience of his broadcasts was 10.8K people, and the peak was 44.8K viewers. It should be noted that he actively covered the games of the 9z before the team was eliminated from the tournament.

Comparison of Russian- and English-language broadcasts

In total, English-language broadcasts of PGL Major Antwerp have collected 29.9 million Hours Watched. Official broadcasts collected almost 92% of total, and the contribution of community casters was only 8%.

The contribution of the caster community turned out to be much more significant in the Russian-language segment, as it amassed over 25% of the total. Official Maincast broadcasts collected the remaining 75% of the 9 million Hours Watched.

The most popular community caster in the English-speaking segment was ohnePixel, who collected 533.2K Hours Watched during the tournament. He is followed by pro players Fl0m and lobanjicaa with 519.3K and 300.5K Hours Watched, respectively.

The best community caster of the Major in the Russian-speaking segment was AdreN, whose viewers generated 545K Hours Watched. Evelone192 and pokanoname ranked 2nd and 3rd with 484.2K and 160.9K Hours Watched, respectively.

Broadcast records

Although the PGL Major Antwerp did not become the leader in terms of peak viewers, many other records were set at the tournament.

Portuguese language: 735K Peak Viewers, the previous record of 397K PV was set at BLAST Premier Spring 2020 American Finals.
Albanian language: 18.2K Peak Viewers, the previous record was 495 PV during BLAST Premier World Final 2021.
Mongolian language: 14.6K Peak Viewers, the previous record of 6.9K PV was set at ESL One Road to Rio Asia.
Ukrainian language: 12.2K Peak Viewers, the previous record of 5.9K PV was reached during ESL Pro League Season 15.
Trovo: 2.9K Peak Viewers, the previous record of 495 PV was set at BLAST Premier World Final 2021.