The International 2022 Qualifiers: viewership dynamics, audience overlap, and community casting

September marked the end of the regional qualifiers for The International 2022, the main Dota 2 tournament of the year. Six regions have determined their representatives who will perform at the world championship in Singapore. The Esports Charts team analyzed these qualifiers and compared them with the results of the previous year. We share our findings in this post.

Trends by region

TI Qualifiers Viewership Dynamics (2019-2022)

Western Europe

Qualifying matches in Western Europe generated 9.6M Hours Watched (-11.8% compared to previous year) and gathered 151K Average Viewers (-30.1%) and 342K Peak Viewers (-37.3%). This means that the 2022 qualifiers fall behind those of 2021 by all metrics. There are several reasons for this: new official studio of broadcast, the absence of OG, one of the most popular teams in the discipline (the team qualified for the tournament by points and therefore did not participate in the qualifiers), and Entity Gaming becoming the champion (a team with lesser media coverage compared to some of its opponents).

Eastern Europe

Audience coverage in Eastern Europe exceeded that of last year's qualifiers both by Hours Watched (+4.6%) and Peak Viewers (+19.6%). Average Viewers remained at the same level (-0.1%). These qualifiers stood out in terms of having a “reversed” ratio of the official broadcast to the community casting. In 2022, independent streamers accounted for 74.4% of the qualifier’s total Hours Watched. Another interesting fact: the most popular match was not the grand final, but the encounter between Natus Vincere and Outsiders in the winners' final. This was achieved thanks to the fan base of the Ukrainian club.

Southeast Asia

Compared to last year, the qualifiers for Southeast Asia suffered a drop in Hours Watched (-11.6%) and Average Viewers (-18.5%) fell, while the Peak Viewers indicator has grown (+11.6%). Fnatic, one of the clubs with a impressive media outreach in the region, did not attend these qualifiers (the team qualified for the tournament based on points), which is why the number of viewers decreased. On the other hand, many people decided to follow the performance of ana and Topson for T1, and the matches of this particular team attracted the largest audience.

China

Disclaimer: Stats from Chinese streaming services were not taken into account in our calculations, as the reliability of the data provided by these is doubtful.

In 2022, Chinese qualifiers showed a strong increase in Hours Watched (+45.4%) and Average Viewers (+23.1%), while the Peak Viewers indicator decreased (-6.5%). The growth is thanks to community casting, especially from Nix. We should also note the strong lineup of the participants of the qualifiers and the absence of an obvious favorite, as in many other regions.

North America

North American qualifiers have shown a decrease in Hours Watched (-15.9%) and Average Viewers (-25.5%) but showed growth in Peak Viewers (+17.5%). This is because most viewers tend to skip matches with little-known teams and come to spectate only the favorites. In addition, the total volume of Russian-language broadcasts of matches in North America has decreased by 34% this year.

South America

South America was the only region where all the main metrics increased compared to the previous year. The main reason lies in the growing popularity of Hispanic broadcasting (+78%). The unexpected defeat of Infamous to Hokori in the grand final could be responsible for arousing more interest from the audience. The Peak Viewers mark reached during the match significantly exceeded the respective indicator of other series.

Community casting and official broadcasts

We also analyzed the ratio of community casting to official broadcasts in Russian and English, which are the main languages for the discipline.

Across all regions, English-speaking viewers prefer to watch official broadcasts. However, things are different with Russian-speaking viewers. Russian-language community casting at tournaments for Eastern and Western Europe exceeds the official streams by 2-3 times. Looking at all six qualifiers in 2022, the share of Russian-speaking community casting is 59.1% versus 40.9% for the official broadcast. For comparison, the respective figures for English-language broadcasts amount to 11.3% and 88.7%, respectively.

Nix became the most popular community streamer of the regional qualifiers at The International 2022. His channel has generated over 4.3M Hours Watched and 87.6K Peak Viewers. The second spot went to Gorgc, the most popular English-speaking community caster. His channel has generated 686K Hours Watched and 28K Peak Viewers.

Top matches

The encounter between Team Liquid and Team Secret in Western Europe became the most popular match among all six regional qualifiers at The International 2022. The series of these teams was watched by 342K Peak Viewers, with more than 1.2M Hours Watched being generated.

It should be noted that out of the top 5 most popular matches, four were played in the qualifier for Western Europe. The third spot in this ranking was unexpectedly taken by a series between Nigma Galaxy and Brame. This was because the teams met in the first round of relegation, where Nigma was one step away from elimination.

The fourth spot among the top matches was taken by the encounter between T1 and Talon in the Southeast Asian qualifier. As mentioned above, attracting the audience’s interest to T1 was the inclusion of two ex-OG players and two-time The International champions — ana and Topson — in the team’s roster. In addition, the T1 club has a large fan base in Southeast Asia, thanks to the achievements of its League of Legends roster. The Talon Esports club is also very popular in the region, thanks to its rosters in League of Legends, Arena of Valor, and other disciplines.

Interestingly enough, the Western European qualifier’s grand final between Team Secret and Entity Gaming took only the fifth spot in the ranking, despite being the decisive series in the most popular region.

Most popular teams across all qualifiers

The most popular team across all qualifiers was Team Secret — leading by Average Viewers (204.4K), Peak Viewers (342.7K), and Hours Watched (4.9M). All in all, the top 10 most popular teams included seven representatives of the Western Europe qualifier. The sixth spot in the overall rating went to T1 — a representative of Southeast Asia. Following it were two clubs from Eastern Europe: Natus Vincere and Outsiders.

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Matches of The International 2022 will be held on October 15-30 in Singapore at Suntec Singapore and Singapore Indoor Stadium. The starting prize fund of the tournament has amounted to $1.6M. At the time of publication of the article, it reached almost $12 million through the sale of compendiums. 20 teams from six regions will compete for the money prize and the championship title.