How did the PW Shanghai Major 2024 draw over a million viewers despite challenging time zone?
As the esports season wraps up, one of its biggest final showdowns was the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, one of the year’s two major Counter-Strike tournaments.
This was the first time the tournament was hosted by an Asian country, and with the inconvenient time zone for key CS demographics, the Esports Charts team was skeptical it would even hit a million concurrent viewers. In the end, the event reached 1.3 million Peak Viewers and thus managed to avoid a significant drop in viewership compared to the spring tournament in Copenhagen.
What helped prevent a drop in metrics? Which demographics had the biggest impact? How does this tie into the growth of one of the streaming platforms? Could the final result have been even better? Let’s take a closer look.
Russian-speaking audience fully supported Team Spirit
The final of the first Major of the season saw Natus Vincere (NAVI) and FaZe Clan facing off, a near-perfect matchup in terms of potential audience. NAVI is generally the most popular team in the game, while FaZe has a massive following among English-speaking fans.
In Shanghai, FaZe Clan went up against Team Spirit, which, despite a major audience boost in 2024 after their triumph in Katowice and Danil “donk” Kryshkovets’ phenomenal performance throughout the year, is still not quite on the same level as NAVI in terms of reach.
When comparing the audience for the finals in Copenhagen and Shanghai, almost all the major demographics were more active during the Danish tournament. For instance, English-language streams peaked at a million viewers, while that number dropped by half in Shanghai. Similarly, viewership for Brazilian-Portuguese, Ukrainian, Polish, and other major European languages also saw a significant decline.
What did grow, however, was the activity of Russian-speaking viewers. In both finals, they had teams to cheer for, but as it turned out, Team Spirit was more appealing to them than NAVI. Compared to Copenhagen, the Russian-speaking audience was nearly 50% larger, and there were over 500,000 concurrent viewers at peak of the Shanghai final, almost 100,000 more than during the Danish final.
A major boost came from streamers Maksim “Shadowkek” Pavlov and Vadim “Evelone” Kozakov. Both took turns streaming all the matches live from the tournament venue, and their streams became main hubs for the Russian-speaking audience. Top Eastern European teams joined their streams, sharing insights and impressions about the games in a casual setting; something that really resonates with the younger crowd, who prefer this type of content over the official broadcasts.
TikTok is gaining traction in desktop esports games
Over the past couple of years, TikTok has become one of the key platforms for mobile esports streams, and gradually it's becoming important for desktop games as well, including Counter-Strike. Most major tournament operators now also stream on TikTok.
While the platform still can't compete with the top ones, its metrics are steadily growing. During the Copenhagen Major, only a few hundred people were regularly following the tournament on TikTok, and the peak didn’t even reach 3,000 viewers. However, TikTok streams consistently gathered thousands of viewers in Shanghai, with the peak exceeding 20,000 concurrent viewers. On average, key metrics for TikTok grew by 300%.
TikTok has its issues when it comes to livestreaming. Technical problems are common, and because of the platform’s terms of service, streams can easily face restrictions. This is especially problematic for Counter-Strike, where betting platforms are often promoted, leading to content restrictions. Despite these challenges, TikTok is clearly on track to keep growing as a streaming platform, and its influence on Counter-Strike esports viewership will keep increasing.
The drama of the final attracted additional viewers
The final was incredibly thrilling, especially the last map, Dust 2. At one point, Team Spirit was leading 12-5 and just needed one more round to claim the trophy. That’s when FaZe Clan launched their stunning comeback, winning six match points in a row in an intense battle full of amazing clutches.
Arguably the most spectacular highlight from FaZe Clan's near comeback
During the final 40 minutes of the game, when FaZe's comeback was happening, the tournament's audience grew by 400,000 viewers. Had FaZe won one more round and taken the game into overtime, the audience could have easily surpassed 1.5 million, and it’s likely the final number would have been even higher.
Historically, all Counter-Strike tournaments held in Asia couldn't come close to the viewership numbers of the Shanghai Major. While time zones remain a key factor in determining viewership, the Shanghai tournament proved that Asian events can still deliver impressive numbers, even with that challenge.
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