IEM Cologne 2022: Play-In & Group Stage Viewership

The IEM Cologne 2022 final matches will be held on June 15-17 at LANXESS arena in Germany. The play-in and group stage of the tournament have improved their viewership statistics compared to last year, and our new article will tell you more about it. Esports Charts presents the interim results of July's biggest CS:GO event.

IEM Cologne 2022 play-in and group stage results

16 teams entered the group stage of IEM Cologne 2022: 8 teams made it via regional qualifiers and other 8 went through play-in. European teams were among the best during the play-in, as well as Brazil's 00Nation, featuring TACO and coldzera, CS:GO veterans and two-time major champions.

Movistar Riders, Astralis and MOUZ also started their way at the tournament with a play-in, but unlike the Brazilian team, they managed to qualify for the play-offs. It is worth mentioning that Movistar Riders defeated G2 Esports and Team Vitality, leaving no French representatives at the tournament. NAVI and FaZe Clan finished the group stage without a single defeat and directly advanced to the tournament's semifinals. The sixth member of the play-offs was Team Liquid that kicked the last Brazilian team, FURIA, out of the tournament.

That means that Team Liquid will play with Movistar Riders and MOUZ will face Astralis in the quarterfinals. The winners of these games will reach the semifinals and compete against FaZe Clan and NAVI respectively. The grand final of the tournament will take place on 17 June.

IEM Cologne 2022 play-in viewership statistics

In total, the play-in games accumulated more than 4.5 million Hours Watched with 193.8K Peak Viewers. Notably, almost 95% of the Hours Watched were generated by Twitch viewers. NimoTV brought to a play-in almost 4% of the same metric, while YouTube's contribution was just a little more than 1%.

The most popular match of this stage was the confrontation between Brazil's Imperial Esports and 00Nation, with more than 351.5K Peak Viewers. It should be mentioned that the most popular channel for play-in broadcasts was Gaules, and the Brazilian language brought to this stage 42.6% of Hours Watched. The most popular play-in team was Imperial Esports.

Compared to last year, the main viewership numbers for the IEM Cologne 2021 play-in have increased by more than 44%. At the same time, the airtime of the stage was almost unchanged.

IEM Cologne 2022 group stage viewership statistics

The group stage of IEM Cologne 2022 lasted almost twice as long as the play-in and accumulated over 11.3 million Hours Watched with 246.8K Average Viewers. The percentage of Hours Watched generated by Twitch viewers was 90%, while NimoTV and YouTube contribution was 7.6% and 2.1% respectively.

The most popular group stage match was the group A final between NAVI and Movistar Riders with almost 484.3K Peak Viewers. English-language broadcasts were in highest demand in the group stage, thanks to which ESL channels (esl_csgo and esl_csgob) took first and second place in terms of Hours Watched. Natus Vincere was the most popular team in the group stage.

Compared to last year's tournament, Hours Watched numbers for the group stage of IEM Katowice 2022 increased by 2.1%, Average Viewers and Peak Viewers — by 6.9% and 7.2% respectively. This is despite the fact that the airtime for this stage dropped by 4.5%.

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Note that the performance of tournaments from ESL that take place in Cologne improves every year. The group stage of ESL One Cologne 2018 attracted less than 60K Average Viewers and just over 100K Peak Viewers, whereas these metrics increased more than fourfold by 2022.