The viewership says it all.
ESL One Birmingham, a million-dollar Dota 2 tournament, just concluded on April 28th. The event had ample upsets and tons of spicy all-chats, not to mention the relentless chugging. All that hype isn't just vibes, but it is also reflected in the numbers! ESL One Birmingham's viewership has broken the record to become the most-watched ESL One Dota 2 tournament - by a far margin.
ESL One Birmingham's viewership reaches 11 million Hours Watched
According to Esports Charts, ESL One Birmingham reached 11.7 million Hours Watched, climbing to the highest rank of all ESL One tournaments. Funnily enough, it overtook the previous ESL One Birmingham which took place in 2019. This tournament garnered 9.7 million Hours Watched. Here are the top 5 ESL One tournaments according to Hours Watched:
Event | Hours Watched | Airtime |
ESL One Birmingham 2024 | 11,712, 576 | 79h 55m |
ESL One Birmingham 2019 | 9,704,142 | 61h 35m |
ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 | 8,113,046 | 65h |
ESL One Summer 2021 | 6,926,192 | 45h 45m |
ESL One Hamburg 2018 | 6,275,977 | 61h 15m |
In terms of Peak Views, the 2024 ESL One Birmingham also did well, breaking into the top 3 of all ESL One Dota 2 events. It stands behind ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 and ESL One Birmingham 2019. These tournaments may have garnered the highest peak views but the 2024 ESL One Birmingham had better consistency in viewership throughout the Playoffs.
In this year's ESL One Birmingham, more people were interested and engaged throughout the final few series of the tournament. In contrast, ESL One Kuala Lumpur only had a drastic surge of views in the grand final series.
Why the tournament broke viewership records
It has been a while since Dota 2 came back to the United Kingdom and the hype train there is unmatchable. As the stats show above, the previous ESL One Birmingham in 2019 also broke records. The location is great, the crowd is wonderful, but what are the main factors leading to this massive viewership?
ESL One Birmingham has the timezone advantage. The Birmingham timezone adheres to two of the biggest language groups in Dota 2, English and Russian. It also helps that United Kingdom is near the center of the map, and Dota 2's biggest communities in the East and West are somewhat able to catch up on the games.
A minor push to the Hours Watched could also be the lengthy tiebreakers that took place during the Group Stage. Remember the simultaneous three-way and four-way tiebreakers? Yes that likely added roughly 7-8 hours of additional air time.
But at the end of the day, it could just be the Dota spirit. We have been getting fed with continuous high-quality Dota 2 games and it's just the first quarter of 2024. More Dota 2 tournaments are coming up!
Stay tuned to esports.gg for more Dota 2 news and updates.