IEM Rio Major 2022 keeps the tempo and hits 1 million Peak Viewers

Loading

On Saturday, November 5, IEM Rio Major 2022 resumed, the last tournament of the CS:GO major series this year. All the strongest teams in the world entered the fight at the Legends Stage, but not all of them were able to please the fans. However, the event itself continues to show convincing results in terms of viewership statistics.

Heroic, BIG, Cloud9 and the Brazilian fan favorites FURIA Esports performed best on the first gaming day of the Legends Stage. All of them scored two victories each and now they will fight for places in the playoffs in the best-of-3 format. On the other hand, Ninjas in Pyjamas and the best team of the current season FaZe Clan lost two of their starting matches. Now they have to fight for survival: one more defeat and they will leave the championship.

The second group stage of the IEM Rio Major immediately surpassed 1 million concurrent viewers at its peak. This happened during the match between Natus Vincere and Team Vitality, which was watched by up to 965K people at the same time. In terms of peak viewership, the Legends Stage has already gained 40% more than the Challengers Stage.

IEM Rio Major 2022 broadcasts and LIVE viewership statistics

With NAVI entering the game, the Russian-speaking audience of the tournament has significantly increased. The average number of Russian-speaking viewers on broadcasts was only 38K on the Challengers Stage, but it increased by 107% on the first day of the Legends Stage. What’s even more impressive is that the number of Peak Viewers on Russian-language streams grew by as much as 184%.

The number of fans on Spanish-language broadcasts fell as expected, as 9z, favorites of Latin American fans, were eliminated from the tournament. The average audience sank immediately by 30%.

Interestingly, the last tournament of the series — PGL Major Antwerp 2022 — also overcame the mark of 1 million Peak Viewers on the first day of the Legends Stage. The current event improved this result by only 1.3%. It is noteworthy that Natus Vincere took part in the most popular match of the first day of the Legends at both majors.

The difference in the average audience turned out to be much more significant between the two events: an increase by 12%. In this regard, the Hours Watched indicator also grew as it turned out to be 25% more than on the first day of the Legends Stage at the major in Belgium.