ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer Regionals recap — Europe, Americas in top five events for the year

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The three ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer Regionals have ended, with participants for the ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer — 2023/24's first premier Starcraft 2 tournament — decided. With a new structure and format, these leagues aim to give players more opportunities and fans a chance to see more of their favorite teams in each regional league, and the European and Americas splits did not disappoint.

The ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer: Europe and the ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer: Americas entered the top five for most watched and popular lists this year. However, it was not a good time for the Asia region, which seemingly suffered from the lack of diverse participants.

What is the StarCraft 2 ESL Pro Tour (ETC)?

The ESL Pro Tour is a yearly StarCraft 2 competition that now features weekly ESL Open Cups, two online ESL StarCraft 2 Masters Regionals with live Finals, and the live EPT Championship. The DreamHack StarCraft 2 Masters has been rebranded as the ESL StarCraft 2 Masters with a new format.

During the ESL StarCraft 2 Masters, players worldwide duel in one of four online regional leagues to ultimately qualify for a spot in the live Finals. The winners of the regional tournaments will join the open sign-ups at DreamHack Summer to play for $75,000 and 8300 EPT Points:

ESL StarCraft 2 Masters Summer:

• Online Regionals from May 2 to 21
• Finals to take place live at DreamHack Summer in Jönköping, Sweden, between June 16 and 18
• Features a $200K total prize pool 

ESL StarCraft 2 Masters Winter:

• Online Regionals from October 31 to November 19
• Finals to take place live at DreamHack Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, from December 15 to 17
• Features a $200K total prize pool

Latin America and North America have been combined as the Americas (AM) region, while China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Oceania, and the Rest of Asia form the Asia region. The European (EU) and Korean (KR; operated by GSL and consisting of two seasons of the 2023 Global StarCraft 2 League) regions continue like preceding years.

Viewership stats of Summer Regionals

  Basic stats and peak matches from the Europe Regionals   

The ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer: Europe did the best among the three regional events with 31K Peak Viewers, 517K Hours Watched, and 7K Average Viewers. Hence, it ended as the second most popular and watched SC2 competition in 2023, behind only the IEM Katowice 2023, which had a "Cinderella Story" of its own.

The Playoffs Finals between winner Serral and MaxPax was the peak match, with these two players, alongside Clem and Spirit, making two entries each on this list. These four names were also among the most watched and popular, with the tournament runner-up topping both metrics.

  Basic stats from the three ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer Regionals   

The ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer: Americas hit 11K PV, 170K HW, and 4K AV. These numbers made it the fifth most watched and popular StarCraft 2 event this year.

The one tournament that failed to catch on was the ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer: Asia, which recorded 6K PV, 68K HW, and 1K AV. Despite Oliveira backing up his win at the IEM Katowice 2023 by emerging on top here and qualifying for the ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer, it seems that the lack of representation of players from Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Oceania, and the Rest of Asia in the final eight affected the viewership numbers here.

Alongside Oliveira, the top four from Europe and the top two from Americas punched their tickets for the ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer in Jönkoping from June 16 to 18. They will be joined by six players from the 2023 GSL Season 1: Code S and three more who have the most combined EPT points.

When looking at the StarCraft2 competitions held so far this year, apart from the three names mentioned above, Gamers Without Borders 2023: Korea and Gamers Without Borders 2023: World made the top five most popular list. For those wondering, the Katowice competition recorded 1.6M HW, 30K AV, and 73K PV.

It proved that, despite the community believing that StarCraft 2 audiences are slowly decreasing, there is still space for success when the ingredients come together, especially if little-known players beat the best StarCrafters from South Korea at major tournaments.

These Summer Regionals did not light the world on fire compared to the most popular or watched SC2 tournaments over the years, let alone the most successful events from other esports. However, knowing the discipline has become niche and has undergone quite a change for 2023 and 2024, the start has been pretty decent.

With the best Starcrafters set to land in Sweden next month, viewership numbers should look up and give an indication of the direction the discipline will take over the next two years. What is certain is that this is an exciting time to be a fan of the legendary game.