Riyadh Masters 2022 results — one of the most popular non-DPC tournament in Dota 2

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Riyadh Masters 2022 was the largest tournament in the history of Dota 2, except for The International series and majors from Valve. Ten teams from all over the world flew to Saudi Arabia to compete for a share of $4M on the big stage of Boulevard Riyadh City. PSG.LGD became the champion and earned $1.5M, defeating Team Spirit with a score of 2:0 in the grand final. The second finalist received $750K.

PSG.LGD players / Photo: twitter.com/Gamers8GG 

Riyadh Masters 2022 was held under the auspices of the Saudi Arabia Esports Federation. The seven invited participants were joined by the winners of charity tournaments in Gamers Without Borders series. The teams were divided into two groups, where they determined the seeding in the playoff bracket. OG took the first spot in group A, while Team Secret prevailed over others in group B. These teams went straight to the playoff semi-finals.

The second and third spots in the groups were taken by Royal Never Give Up, Nigma Galaxy, PSG.LGD, and Team Spirit — these started the playoffs from the first round. TSM, Team Liquid, Tundra Esports, and Deboosters left the tournament after the group stage. It should be noted that three of these four teams played with stand-ins, which could not but affect their results.

In the playoff bracket, PSG.LGD first dealt with Nigma Galaxy, then defeated OG in the match for reaching the final. In turn, Team Spirit defeated RNG and Team Secret. All these series ended with a score of 2:1. The final didn’t provide such kind of intrigue as PSG.LGD scored victories on two maps rather quickly (spending half an hour on each) and took small revenge for its defeat in the final of The International 2022.

Viewership statistics

Statistics of Riyadh Masters 2022

Riyadh Masters 2022 matches generated 9.7M Hours Watched. The broadcasts attracted more than 200.3K Average Viewers and 363.5K Peak Viewers. Interestingly, the most popular match of the tournament was not the final, but the semi-final series between Team Secret and Team Spirit. The latter also became the tournament’s most watched team: matches with its participation generated 3.84M Hours Watched. PSG.LGD came second, being 15% behind. The top 5 by the indicator also included Team Secret, OG, and Nigma Galaxy.

Russian and English became the main broadcast languages. The first was leading in terms of Peak Viewers (182.5K) while the second was leading in terms of Hours Watched (4.6M). Most of the viewers followed the tournament via Twitch (309K Peak Viewers). YouTube attracted only 77K Peak Viewers and about 4.6K Peak Viewers watched the matches on DotaTV.

It should be reminded that the official English-language broadcast was conducted on Gamers8 channels, and the Maincast studio was responsible for organizing the Russian-language broadcast. At the same time, the tournament was covered by a number of community casters. For example, the stream of NS generated 717.4K Hours Watched: this is the third best indicator, only exceeded by the channels gamers8GG (2.5M) and dota2mc (1.6M). The event was also covered by Gorgc (who attracted almost 35K Peak Viewers), Nix, SingSing, AdmiralBulldog, Illidan, and other Dota 2 creators.

Comparison with other tournaments

Statistics of the largest non-DPC tournaments 2021-2022

In 2021 and 2022, there were not so many large-scale third-party Dota 2 tournaments outside the DPC season, and none of them could compare with the Riyadh Masters 2022 in terms of the prize pool. The closest in terms of audience coverage were seasonal events by ESL. The July championship in Riyadh was far ahead of all other competitions that did not have Major or TI status.

If we take into account the official tournaments from Valve, then the recent ESL One Stockholm Major 2022 turned out to be more popular than Riyadh Masters 2022, both in terms of Peak Viewers (589K) and Average Viewers (252.2K). These tournaments are roughly comparable in terms of Hours Watched, based on airtime. At the same time, it should be reminded that the major in Stockholm featured no participants from China.

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The next major Dota 2 tournament will be the PGL Arlington Major 2022, the last major in the Dota Pro Circuit 2021/2022 season. It will be held on August 4-14 in the USA at Esports Stadium Arlington. There, 18 participants will compete for $500K and 4,570 DPC points.