IEM Katowice 2022 has entered the list of the most-viewed CS:GO events of all time after peaking at over 1 million concurrent viewers on the final day of the event.
The showpiece competition came to a close on February 27 with an intense and balanced-out final between FaZe and G2 Esports that was not reflected by the 3-0 scoreline.
Fans tuned in by the hundreds of thousands to watch the best-of-five grand final, which hit a peak viewership of over 1.1 million viewers during the marathon game of Mirage, according to statistics website Esports Charts.
IEM Katowice may not have reached the same heights as PGL Major Stockholm, which set a new game record for the highest peak viewership, but it still made history as the only non-Major in the top 5 of the most-viewed CS:GO tournaments of all time.
It is fifth on the list, taking the spot that was occupied by the FACEIT Major (peak viewership of 1,084,946).
The top most-viewed CSGO events following are listed below:
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- PGL Major 2021 — 2,748,850
- ELEAGUE Major 2017 — 1,331,781
- ELEAGUE Major 2018 — 1,329,096
- IEM Katowice 2019 — 1,205,103
- IEM Katowice 2022 — 1,122,015
#IEM Katowice 2022 – most popular non-Major @CSGO event.@ESLCS @IEM
— Esports Charts 🇺🇦 (@EsportsCharts) February 27, 2022
The semi-final between G2 and NAVI almost broke the 1 million viewers mark but ended up hitting a peak that was just shy of 980,000. Of the five most-viewed matches of the tournament, four of them involved G2, who posted an average viewership of 475,845 people – over 100,000 more than NAVI (372,694) and tournament champions FaZe (350,782).
These are exciting times for CS:GO esports. After a rocky year with multiple scandals and the threat posed by a rising competitor in Valorant, the scene seems to be on the up in the highest echelons thanks in large part to the return of in-person events with a crowd.
- Discover More: ropz: “I’m glad I joined FaZe and not G2”
The next such tournament will be PGL Major Antwerp, slated for May 9-22. In a recent interview with Dexerto, PGL CEO Silviu Stroie vowed to raise the bar for this event after the Stockholm Major felt somewhat underwhelming from a storytelling perspective and was dogged by production and technical issues.
