It’s official—a whole lot of people are watching eSports, especially the first-person shooter game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). In fact, Electronic Sports League (ESL) saw double-digit growth across all viewership metrics during its third season of the ESL Pro League.
Offering competitors a $750,000 prize pool, the 2016 ESL Pro League for Valve’s CS:GO was the first league to implement the new standardized regulations of the World ESports Association (WESA). As the most-watched event of ESL history, the nine-week competition saw a peak year-over-year growth of over 44 percent for online content consumption. During the season finals in London, content shared through Facebook garnered a total of 5.3 million views. A combined total of over 39 million impressions were recorded on ESL-owned social media, with 5.7 million engagements over Twitter and Facebook.
An average of 180,000 people tuned in for each match throughout the 2016 ESL CS:GO Pro League. When combined with the sold-out London arena, this year marks the largest UK viewership of a first-person shooter event in the eSports industry.
Not surprisingly, the most interactions were reached when the stakes were highest: during the closing games of the tournament. Globally, season viewership saw a 40 percent increase, reaching more than 61 million online sessions with over 1.2 million unique viewers tuning in for the final day of the tournament alone, an increase of over 30 percent. With ESL strategic partnerships like Twitch, Yahoo and Nvidia, that’s some serious brand awareness.
Fans watched and posted their thoughts online as Brazilian team, Luminosity Gaming, took on G2 Esports, ultimately winning to take home $200,000. The takeaway for these metrics? Interactions for the beginning of a competition are made by dedicated fans cheering on a specific team or eSports in general, while the majority of audience participation begins as the pressure builds toward a finale.
ESL launched a 24/7 eSports TV channel in the Baltic and Nordic regions last month, with the intention of growing its 100 million digital viewership. “We have always dreamt of making eSports the world’s most popular sport, and it’s the opportunities like this one that bring us one step closer to making that dream come true,” said ESL’s managing director, Ralf Reichert when the new channel was announced. “Bringing new and existing content to more screens worldwide is key to further accelerating the growth and popularity of eSports, and we’re on a mission to reach every gamer in the world.”
