Ukrainian, Turkish and Romanian languages set new viewership records — PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 results

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PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 marked the first tournament by Valve after the release of Counter-Strike 2, drawing over 1.85 million Peak Viewers, securing the third-highest viewership in the history of the franchise. Ukrainian, Turkish, and Romanian languages set new viewership records, and popular Twitch community started multicasting on YouTube, thereby expanding the tournament's audience reach.

The PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 amassed over 58.2 million Hours Watched, just 1% shy of the total generated by the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. However, the difference in the number of viewers between the two tournaments was more significant. For instance, the average viewership for the Copenhagen Major streams was 8.7% higher than that in Paris. Moreover, peak concurrent viewership increased by 21%, rising from 1.52M to 1.85M PV. Across all key metrics, PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 surpassed BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023.

New records for broadcast languages at PGL Major Copenhagen 2024

Surprisingly, the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 saw a significant decrease in the share of English-language broadcasts. While English streams accounted for nearly 63% of total watch time at the Paris Major, in Copenhagen, they comprised just over 40%.

Other languages offset the decline in English coverage. For instance, the share of Portuguese content doubled, increasing from 12.4% to almost 25% of total Hours Watched. Peak viewership for Portuguese streams also doubled, reaching 326K PV. The growth can be attributed to the participation of numerous Brazilian teams (FURIA Esports, Imperial Esports, paiN Gaming, Legacy), as well as the Portuguese team SAW.

A similar trend occurred with Russian-language broadcasts. Compared to the previous major, their share increased from 10% to 18.7%. Peak viewership for Russian streams reached 416K PV, marking the ninth highest for the language in esports and the third in Counter-Strike history: only PGL Major Stockholm 2021 and PGL Major Antwerp 2022 have attracted more Russian-speaking viewers in Counter-Strike. Like the Brazilians, the rise of Russian viewership can be attributed to the participation of several Russian-speaking teams, including AMKAL ESPORTS, Cloud9, Virtus.pro, and Team Spirit.

New language records at PGL Major Copenhagen 2024

The Turkish language also saw significant growth during the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, reaching 111.6K PV, marking a new record for the language in Counter-Strike tournaments. This surge was largely due to the presence of the Turkish team Eternal Fire in the playoffs.

Additionally, a new record was set for the Ukrainian language. Peak viewership for Ukrainian streams during the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 exceeded 137.8K PV, marking the best result for the language in esports. The victory of Natus Vincere in the grand final, along with the promotion of Ukrainian streams by popular Ukrainian bloggers, contributed to attracting such a large audience.

The previous record for Ukrainian language streams was just over 60K PV, set during the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023, the previous Counter-Strike major. It's noteworthy that Ukrainian-language streams ranked second in peak online viewership among all official broadcasts of the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, with only the official English broadcasts attracting more viewers.

YouTube community casting and technical problems with CSTV

Nearly 260 unique channels covered the matches of PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, whereas the Paris Major games were broadcast on 220 channels. This marks a significant, albeit not critical, difference, especially considering that some of the "new" channels were streams by the same content creators but on different platforms. For instance, top community casters like Gaules, izakOOO, and ohnepixel covered both tournaments, but they additionally streamed on YouTube during PGL Major Copenhagen 2024.

The Danish major featured more top streamers such as xQc, shadowkekw, caedrel, summit1g, and Nix. While they didn't cover the Paris major, they managed to attract a fairly large audience during the latter; for instance, shadowkekw alone had a peak viewership of 165.7K.

The final statistics of PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 could have been even higher if not for technical issues with CSTV. The service stopped working during the last map of the grand final, causing many community casters to be unable to finish the series.

The next official Valve tournament will be the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, scheduled to take place from December 1st to 15th in China. The event's prize pool will amount to $1.25 million. The main difference in this tournament will be the redistribution of slots across stages. For example, invites to the Elimination Stage will only be given to teams from European RMRs. In the American RMR, seven slots will be contested instead of six, and teams from the Asia-Pacific RMR will receive three slots instead of two.