PGL Stockholm’s Grand Finals between G2 Esports and Natus Vincere, took CS:GO viewership to new heights, with over 2.7 Million Peak Viewers. Here’s a breakdown of PGL Stockholm Viewership Statistics.
As Natus Vincere set a new record by going flawless throughout the major, Counter-Strike set a new record too. PGL Stockholm Viewership reached unimaginable heights doubling the previous record of peak viewership. It also exceeded the total hours watched record by 10 Million hours despite being on air for 30 hours less.
PGL Stockholm Peak Viewership
Before this Major, the most-watched CSGO tournament was Eleague Major Atlanta 2017 with an unprecedented 1.33 Million Peak Viewer count. For Context, 2017's second most popular event was the next Major at PGL Krakow with 961K Viewers. In the 4 years since, no event was able to match that, with the closest being Eleague's own Boston Major in 2018.
Right before the pandemic hit, IEM Katowice 2020 became the first non-major LAN to break 1 Million Concurrent Viewers. This was a whopping 430K viewers more than any prior LAN. While this showed great signs of growth for the scene, the immediate transition to online events harmed the viewership statistics. Since then no event had broken a million peaks as many viewers felt burned out from the never-ending online events.
With the return of the Majors, all eyes were on PGL Stockholm to finally take us back to high viewership. And the event delivered, beating out Legends Stage records and then following it up by hitting the all-time peak in just the quarter-finals. With an almost 1.4 Million peak count in the NaVi vs Vitality Quarter-Finals, it was expected that the major would go above the 1.5 Million mark by the finals.
By the finals, however, the Major had gone above and beyond the most optimistic hopes. NaVi vs G2 was the final that had made Katowice's 1 Million peak possible and now it blew every other match out of the water. With an eye-watering 2.7 Million Viewer Peak, PGL Stockholm more than doubled the previous record. In addition to that 4 of the playoffs matches ended up on the top 5 most-watched matches of all time.
PGL Stockholm Viewership Compared to Other Esports Events
PGL Stockholm is also ranked as the 7th highest viewership of any esport event. It not only beat out all iterations of Dota2's The International but also ranked higher than all but 3 of LOL's World Championships. Previously, no CS:GO event was even in the top 20 events.
Total Hours Watched
PGL Stockholm also broke the record for Total Hours Watched that was set at FACEIT Major London. While London's total was 61 Million Hours Watched, with an on-air time of 150 hours. PGL Stockholm not only had a lower on-air time at 120 hours but also had higher total hours watched at 71 Million Hours. Over 10 million more than the previous record!
With crowds coming back in full force, an amazing talent lineup, the rise of cross-viewers from Valorant, co-streaming and amazing production quality, this event was the perfect storm. These factors led to such high viewership at PGL Stockholm and, I hope the trend continues going forward in CS:GO as it will take out esport from being the clear step below from LOL and Dota2 to being the second biggest esport in the world.
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