Six Invitational 2022 becomes the discipline’s second most watched event

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The Six Invitational 2022 has come to a close as TSM took out the premier Rainbow Six championship in Stockholm which featured the top 20 Rainbow Six teams in a battle for a share of the $3 million prize pool. In this article, Esports Charts sums up viewership results of the events and compares them with previous tournaments in the series.

Six Invitational 2022 ran across two weeks, with the Air Time totalling 137 hours. During this time, the tournament accumulated 16.6M Hours Watched, breaking the record as the second most watched (by HW) Rainbow Six event after the Six Invitational 2021. 

On average, 120.76K viewers watched the competition, with the highest number of spectators tuning in to the grand final featuring North American squad TSM against Russian Team Empire — 271.45K Peak Viewers.  

TSM fought its way back to the grand final from the lower bracket where it got sent by Team Empire. After the 2-0 victory against FaZe Clan, TSM took revenge for the previous matchup and swept Empire 3-1. 

Although the final match of the event was run at the same time as the decisive group stage CS:GO matches at IEM Katowice 2022, its viewership wasn’t impacted by simultaneous broadcasts.

The results of Six Invitational 2022 differ from the last two majors, which were both won by teams representing Brazil, likely the most competitive region in the Rainbow Six esports scene as of now. Moreover, while the previous Six Sweden Major featured two Brazilian teams in the final, none reached the decisive match of the 2022 tournament.

TSM not only won the competition but also became the most watched team of the event. The team accumulated more than 4.33M Hours Watched during the championship, which is 22% more than the second FaZe Clan. The Top 5 most watched teams (by HW) also included Empire, Team Liquid and MIBR. 

Sorted by Average Viewers, the most popular was Team Empire, followed by TSM and FaZe Clan. 

Compared to last year’s Six Invitational 2021, the HW count of the tournament decreased by 10%, despite the Air Time being 17% longer this year. The average viewership of 2022’s edition declined by 22.9%, while its concurrent viewership declined by 11.43%. 

Compared with the Six Sweden Major, the most recent top-tier Rainbow Six competition, the Six Invitational 2021 generated 307.4% more Hours Watched than the Major, while its Air Time was 115.6% longer. Furthermore, both AV and PV metrics showed significantly higher viewership during Six Invitational 2022, which attracted 88.52% more Average Viewers and 169% more Peak Viewers than the Six Sweden Major. 

Although the viewership of the Six Invitational 2022 was slightly lower than the results of the previous year’s edition, and despite the fact that the discipline’s peak viewership record hasn’t been broken since the Six Invitational 2018, it’s evident that the Six Invitational series is not losing popularity and that the discipline continues to thrive. 

Read more about viewership results of the Qualifying Stage of Six Invitational 2022.