ESL One Birmingham 2024 skyrocket the viewership in Group Stage thanks to Russian broadcasts

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The ESL One Birmingham 2024 group stage matches concluded on April 24th, with 8 out of 12 participating teams advancing to the playoffs. The tournament has seen a significant increase in audience engagement, with average viewership on broadcasts growing by 11% compared to ESL One Kuala Lumpur.

Due to the best-of-2 match format, several teams in the groups ended up with the same number of points, leading organizers to conduct multiple tiebreaker series. As a result, Team Falcons and BetBoom Team emerged as the top contenders in Group A, securing spots in the upper bracket of the playoffs. Team Liquid and G2 x iG performed slightly worse and will compete in the lower bracket, while Talon Esports and Shopify Rebellion were eliminated from the tournament.

In Group B, OG and Tundra Esports claimed the top two spots, while Xtreme Gaming and Heroic found themselves in the middle of the table. Surprisingly, Team Spirit and Gaimin Gladiators, two strong teams from the previous season, were among those eliminated. Interestingly, Team Spirit drew all five series in the group stage, only losing in three consecutive matches during the tiebreakers.

ESL One Birmingham 2024 Group Stage Viewership Statistics

The group stage matches of ESL One Birmingham 2024 generated over 4.7 million Hours Watched, nearly 40% more than the tournament in Malaysia. The tournament also saw a significant increase in the number of viewers, with average viewership rising by 11% and peak viewership increasing by 38%.

Overall, the tournament is showing very positive trends in audience engagement. Viewer metrics are on the rise, particularly on official channels. Compared to last year, official channels of Russian broadcasts experienced the strongest growth. This year, they didn't have to compete with popular Russian community casters like Nix and Just_NS. Additionally, with two top teams from the region and several Russian players in other clubs, Russian-speaking viewers had plenty of teams to support.

The most popular match of the group stage was a game between OG and Team Spirit with 127.2K Peak Viewers. Among the most popular matches were the games between Team Spirit and Xtreme Gaming, and BetBoom Team against G2.iG. Interestingly, none of the top 3 matches included tiebreaker games, although that's where the teams' final placements were decided.

The playoffs of ESL One Birmingham 2024 will take place from April 25th to 28th at the Resorts World Arena. You can follow the tournament's progress on the live coverage page.