PGL Major Stockholm broke the record that was held for 4 years — it's most watched CS:GO event ever!

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PGL Major Stockholm 2021, the main championship in CS:GO, has come to an end. In the decisive match Natus Vincere won after an incredible comeback on the second map: this was the first victory of the Ukrainian club in a Major after three defeats in finals. There was an incredible excitement around the event, which is confirmed by the record viewership statistics of the PGL Major, which we will now tell you about.

Disclaimer: statistics does not take into account data from Chinese streaming services, since they use other methods of measuring viewership activity

During the final rounds of the last map, the number of viewers on the broadcasts of PGL Major Stockholm exceeded 2.74 million viewers: there were never that many spectators during a CS:GO tournament. The previous record by peak viewers was held by ELEAGUE Major 2017 for 4.5 years! Back then Astralis faced Virtus.pro in the final, and the game was simultaneously watched by 1.33 million viewers — this is 52% less than the new record!

During the finals, CS:GO set a new record by the peak viewers on the Twitch — it exceeded 2 million people. Thus, the game became the fifth most popular Twitch category, overtaking Dota 2, Valorant and Call of Duty: Warzone.

In addition, the peak audience of PGL Major Stockholm turned out to be more than at The International 10: the difference was only 7.3 thousand people, but previously the majors (and any other CS:GO tournament) did not attract as many viewers as TI. One should also note that peak on English broadcasts also were bigger than the peaks on TI10 broadcasts of the same language.

During the course of the tournament, the audience of the event grew at a rapid pace. At the Challengers stage, the average number of viewers on broadcasts was 399K people with a peak of 668K. At the Legends stage, these values increased by 35.7% and 46%, respectively, and in the playoffs — by another 82% and 181%!

Four out of the seven games of the PGL Stockholm Major playoffs have taken the first four places in the discipline by Peak Viewers. In addition to the final of the Major, the top 5 in the entire history of CS:GO included both semifinals (NAVI vs Gambit had 40K more Peak Viewers compared to G2 Esports vs Heroic match), as well as the ¼ final match between NAVI and Team Vitality. Top 5 is closed by ELEAGUE Major 2017 final.

As we have already noted, record values in the discipline by peak viewers was held for more than 4.5 years. In the entire history of the game, only six CS:GO tournaments at their peak attracted more than a million people.

Previously, no CS:GO tournament was even in the top 20 in esports in terms of viewership, while the PGL Major immediately jumped to seventh place in the overall rating. In addition to TI10, it bypassed such popular events as the Fortnite World Cup 2019, Worlds 2017-2018 and Mid-Season Invitational 2021.

  Most watched esports events by Peak Viewers  

PGL Major Stockholm 2021 became the third largest tournament in October-November, along with Worlds 2021 and The International 10. The Major became the first significant event in the CS:GO discipline since the beginning of the pandemic with spectators in attendance. All this affected the viewership statistics heavily, but hardly anyone expected such an explosive growth of discipline. In the near future, we will also tell you about the most popular teams of the tournament: do not miss the announcements on our social networks!