DreamLeague Season 20 reaches peak Hours Watched for the series

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As June comes to a close, so does Dreamhack’s DreamLeague Season 20. In spite of a rocky road to the playoffs, Gaimin Gladiators emerged victorious, securing their fourth trophy of 2023. Notably, their Grand Finals match attracted a peak viewership of 276,460, making it the most-watched online Dota 2 event of the year.

This season marked the second instalment of the series in 2023, with DreamLeague Season 19 having taken place only two months prior. Featuring a lineup of sixteen teams for various regions worldwide, Season 20 offered a competitive tournament with a substantial $1,000,000 USD prize pool. Additionally, these two recent DreamLeague seasons also functioned as qualifiers for Riyadh Masters 2023, an offline LAN tournament to be held in Dubai. The collective $2,000,000 USD prize pools of the two DreamLeague seasons pale in comparison to Riyadh Masters 2023’s enormous $15,000,000 USD that is up for grabs. 

Gaimin Gladiators, who had already secured their spot at the Riyadh Masters 2023 by finishing first in DreamLeague Season 19, displayed remarkable determination as they advanced to the Grand Finals. Despite a third-place finish in their group during the initial stages (Group Stage 1 and 2), the Gladiators faced a challenging playoffs victory road. They initially encountered setbacks, losing map one of their first two playoff matches. However, they managed to secure a hard-fought 3-2 victory in the Grand Finals against BetBoom Team.

DreamLeague Season 20 Viewership

During the two weeks of DreamLeague Season 20, an impressive milestone was reached as the event amassed 20.8 million Hours Watched, marking a new high for DreamLeague. The event garnered an Average Viewership of 128.2K, with a Peak Viewership reaching 276.4K.

The Grand Final match between Gaimin Gladiators and BetBoom Team drew in the largest Peak Viewers count. Notably, the viewership remained consistently high throughout the event, with only a 40K difference between the most popular match and the second most popular match.

Gaimin Gladiators claimed the top spots as the most popular team of the event based on Average Viewers per match. This outcome comes as no surprise as Gaimin Gladiators played the Grand Finals, the most-watched match of the event

Three Eastern European teams also made it into the top-5 with only 4k Average Viewers separating them. No clear fan favourite stood out from these data.

English and Russian continue to be major languages for Dota 2 broadcasts, however, Spanish is also developing and growing within the scene to become a rival for these two. Asian languages also make up a sizeable portion of popular languages as teams from the Asian regions continue to show up and perform at Dota 2 events.

DreamLeague Season 20 achieved the third-highest peak viewership among 2023 tournaments, with 276.4K Peak Viewers. It falls behind The Lima Major 2023 (491.3K Peak Viewers) and ESL One Berlin Major 2023 (507.6K Peak Viewers). However, it stands as the most-watched non-Major tournament of 2023 and the largest DreamLeague event in over two years.

DreamLeague Season 20 set a new record for DreamLeague history with a staggering 162 hours of Airtime, making it the longest broadcast for a tournament in the series’ history. It dethroned DreamLeague Season 19 by only less than 4 hours.

DreamLeague Season 20 saw an increase in all areas of viewership compared to Season 19, even when the slightly longer Airtime is accounted for. Although the Peak Viewers figure is very similar to DreamLeague Season 19, the Average Viewers number of 128.2K marked an 11% uptick in only two months. 

The most-watched season of DreamLeague in over two years and with over 20 million Hours Watched, expectations are now high for the main event in Dubai — the Riyadh Masters 2023. Taking place between the 17th and 30th of July and with a $15,000,000 USD prize pool, Riyadh Masters 2023 will be the consequence and conclusion of qualifiers DreamLeague Season 19 and 20. Follow the event on the coverage page.