Eastern European esports organizations — how did their popularity change during the war in Ukraine?

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Almost 4 months have passed since the start of the war in Ukraine, and during this time esports in Eastern Europe has undergone significant changes. Many leagues were put on hold, and the teams had to leave the countries engaged in conflict, play under neutral tags or even change the rosters, which undoubtedly affected their viewership statistics. In the new article, Esports Charts will describe the war-induced changes to the popularity of the top clubs from Ukraine and Russia: Natus Vincere, Gambit Esports, Virtus.pro, and Team Spirit.

For a more accurate calculation of statistics, we did not take into account the matches of the selected teams against each other. The data for VP and Gambit includes matches under neutral tags (Outsiders, Players, and MZS), with the statistics of Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov's roster after the move to Cloud9 being not taken into account.

In the last three months before the war (since December 1), Gambit Esports was the region’s most popular organization. This was largely due to the success of the Valorant roster, which reached the finals of VALORANT Champions 2021, the discipline's world championship. In the period from March to May, there was no trace left of the club's impressive viewership statistics. During this time, Average and Peak Viewers decreased by 69% and 78%, respectively.

It should be noted that Gambit Esports recently disbanded two Dota 2 rosters and one Apex Legends roster, while the CS:GO roster of the Russian organization completely moved to Cloud9. At the time of publication, Gambit had only one active Valorant roster performing under the neutral MZS tag.

It is noteworthy that of the organizations reviewed, only Gambit Esports has shown a decrease in all four indicators (Hours Watched, Average Viewers, Peak Viewers, and Airtime) after the start of the war.

The Average and Peak Viewers indicators of Team Spirit, Natus Vincere, and Virtus.pro grew mainly due to the participation of their CS:GO rosters in PGL Major Antwerp 2022. It should be reminded that VP (Outsiders) took the 12-14th spot in the tournament, Spirit reached the semi-final, and NAVI played in the grand final of the tournament. At the same time, the indicators of Team Spirit have grown significantly thanks to the performance of the Dota 2 roster at ESL One Stockholm Major 2022.

When not taking the statistics of majors into account it turns out that the metrics of all organizations have strongly decreased during the war. At the same time, Team Spirit indicators suffered the least: the organization's Peak and Average Viewers decreased by 23% and 1%, respectively. The largest drop in these indicators was shown by Virtus.pro: these went down by 61% and 38%, respectively.

Now let's pay attention to the popularity of organizations among the Russian-speaking audience. Looking at the statistics of rosters across all tournaments, including the majors, it can be seen that during the war, NAVI's indicators grew even more than those of Team Spirit. At the same time, Peak and Average Viewers of Virtus.pro decreases by 3% and 37%, while the same indicators for Gambit Esports decreased by 70% and 58%, respectively.

When looking at the viewership statistics of the teams in the Russian-speaking segment, excluding the majors, it once again turns out that the indicators of all the reviewed organizations decreased quite a lot during the war. At the same time, Peak and Average Viewers of Gambit decreased the most: by more than 60%. Spirit (down 15%) has shown the smallest decrease in terms of Peak Viewers and NAVI (down 13%) has shown the smalled decrease in terms of Average Viewers.

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Evidently, the war in Ukraine has affected the viewership statistics of every Eastern European esports organization. Being under severe sanctions, the rosters of Virtus.pro and Gambit are forced to play under neutral tags. And while VP stays afloat by participating in the CS:GO Major and tournaments in less popular disciplines, such as Warface, then Gambit's position looks rather precarious. Meanwhile, Team Spirit moved its rosters to Serbia and continued its activities without visible consequences. At the same time, the Ukrainian Natus Vincere has retained the status of the most popular organization in the region, and this is unlikely to change in the near future.