Results of PGL Major Stockholm New Challengers: Europe and CIS have no competitors

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The first group stage of PGL Major Stockholm has ended. Eight teams advanced to the New Legends stage, and eight more left the tournament without any prize money. Esports Charts breaks down the results of the stage, let’s take a look at the results of matches and current viewership statistics of the event.

The New Challengers once again highlighted the gap formed between Europe/CIS and the rest of the scene. Teams from Asia, Oceania and North and South America won only three games (and all three were in matches against each other) and finished PGL Major at 20-24 places.

European teams performed the most confidently with FaZe, Copenhagen Flames, ENCE, Heroic, Astralis and MOUZ qualifying for the next stage. Interestingly, each team has a player from Denmark, which is represented at the event by 20 players. Only Brazil had a bigger representation in the tournament (21 players), but after the New Challengers Stage, their number in the tournament was reduced to six.

The CIS has a reason to be happy: two of the three teams of the region advanced to the next stage. Alongside Virtus.pro, the team Entropiq got into New Legends, and that is one of the biggest surprises of the event so far. Hooch's squad finished the stage with a 3:1 score beating three European teams — Astralis, Heroic and Movistar Riders.

As for viewership statistics, in four days the average audience of PGL Stockholm Major was 399K viewers. The drop during the last day was caused by the elimination of Brazilian teams: on the fourth day of the event, when they were not playing, the average audience of Portuguese-language broadcasts decreased by about 40%, and that affected the total.

The current event’s record for viewers was set on the first day of the event with 667.9K concurrent viewers. This is 54% more than it was during the New Challengers stage at StarLadder Major Berlin 2019. The average audience of a major has grown similarly by almost 46%.

The most popular team of New Challengers is GODSENT. On average, more than 378K viewers watched the matches of the TACO and felps squad. Unsurprisingly, third part of the total is the audience of the Portuguese-language broadcasts of the streamer Gaules, the most popular CS:GO caster from Brazil.

The largest number of Average Viewers on English, Finnish and Polish streams was attracted by ENCE. The average audience of its matches was 344K spectators; it is the second most popular team in the first group stage.

The top 5 also includes FaZe Clan, Astralis and Team Spirit. The last two participated in the decisive match of the stage, which is currently the most popular in the tournament — 569.8K Peak Viewers. This is 10% more than the peak of the ENCE vs FaZe match, which was in the lead from the first day of the tournament.

During the Berlin Major, the most popular match of the New Challengers stage was between G2 and mouz with a peak of 351.9K people. The top match of the stage this year attracted 62% more viewers.

In the second stage of the Major, several of the most popular teams enter the fight, including Natus Vincere, Team Liquid, G2 Esports and Ninjas in Pyjamas. Almost certainly on October 30 the tournament will significantly improve its statistics, especially during the FURIA vs Astralis and NAVI vs Heroic games.