BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024 records most-watched Fall Final group stage ever

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The BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2024 completed its short eight-match group stage on September 26. Astralis and Team Falcons were the two unlucky organizations eliminated, the latter of which just announced that s1mple is joining their roster on a three-month loan. The short group stage of this Fall Final was an exciting one for many of Counter-Strike’s major audiences, and it became the most-watched BLAST Premier Fall Final group stage on record.

S1mple’s old team, NAVI, recorded the most popular match of the stage and also advanced directly to the semifinals after defeating G2 Esports in the winners match. In Group B, Team Vitality managed to also qualify directly to semifinals, leaving Team Liquid to play FaZe Clan in a quarterfinal, and G2 Esports to face Team Spirit in the other. Hopefully, the playoffs stage will replicate the high English and Russian-language viewership which boosted the group stage to new heights. 

In total, the eight games that made up the group stage at this year’s Fall Final generated 4.71M Hours Watched, a 39.8% increase over last year’s Fall Final group stage watch time. Not only was the stage the most-watched groups ever for a Fall Final, but it also generated the highest peak with 389.6K Peak Viewers recorded for G2 Esports’ match against NAVI.

NAVI established itself as one of Counter-Strike’s most legendary organizations through various iterations of the franchise, and in CS2, the team is still one of the globe’s most popular competitors. G2 Esports is also a favourite for international fans, with many English-speaking fans following the historic organization. Their match was able to reach record-setting peak viewership thanks to a combination of these two strong audiences, as well as minor support from other fanbases, such as Brazilian esports fans. 

While NAVI’s winners match against G2 was the event’s most popular match, the elimination match in Group B was almost as popular as it. Astralis faced off against Team Spirit after both teams lost their opening matches, and fans kept a keen eye on Astralis following their substitution drama. The organization replaced one of their players, br0, with cadiaN on the basis of a medical emergency; however, br0’s agent revelaed the player was in perfect health, which would not allow a new player to join Astralis so close to the event.

Team Spirit has built up a strong Russian-language following for itself in 2024, emerging as one of the region’s strongest competitors. The combination of this passionate Russian-language audience and the attention generated for Astralis through their recent substitution struggles helped this elimination game to become a top match of the stage. Apart from this game, no other game was able to come close to the viewership achieved by the top match. 

Ideally for the event organizers, Team Spirit managed to qualify for the playoffs stage, bringing their sizeable Russian-language audience with them. Considering the teams competing in the event’s playoffs stage, both English and Russian-language audiences should stay active for upcoming matches, meaning we can continue to expect high viewership from the remaining matches of the event.

The Fall Final 2024 increased its Average Viewers by 41.8% compared to last year, and this followed a significant jump in viewership for the 2023 event. After the pandemic, viewership for BLAST Premier events calmed down from their strong results during the lockdowns, and some of the 2022 events suffered from particularly low viewership.

In 2023, BLAST began to move on and find increases in their viewership for the year, and the same has happened in 2024. The Spring Final 2024 was the most popular BLAST Premier event since 2022, and the Fall Final has now shown it means to start a trend of increasing viewership for the event series. The playoffs matches are beginning today, September 27, so keep an eye out for the viewership of the games on our tournament page for the BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024. If this high viewership continues, it could be one of the most-watched Fall Final events ever.