CS:GO

ESL Pro League reveals record CSGO viewership numbers for 2019

12/28/2019

Esports tournament organizer and production company ESL has revealed its viewership numbers for the past season of its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) league. With a new format and an increase in events, season 10 of ESL Pro League saw an increase in viewership that broke several records.

Season 10 of ESL Pro League

“This year was the most outstanding year in the history of the ESL Pro League. We are very pleased that the Pro League 2019 has performed well in so many aspects,” said Ulrich Schulze, Senior Vice President of Product at ESL, in a release. “In the three years that we have visited the Danish fans in Odense, we have seen a steady growth from 2017 to 2019, which we owe last but not least to a large extent to the incredible Danish fan base.”

Excluding China, there were 22.6 million hours of content watched and an increase of average minute audience by 38.9% to 52,140 fans. This statistic was boosted by the tournament viewership of its final event in Odense, Denmark where 16 teams clashed for a $600,000 prize pool.

Odense Grand Finals

The grand final matchup saw German organization mousesports defeat United Kingdom organization Fnatic in a best-of-five series, with points toward the Intel Grand Slam on the line. The Odense event had over 5,000 attendees per day at the physical event, along with 12.6 million fans tuning in online. A total of 9.7 million hours were watched, which made it the second most watched non-major CSGO event of 2019.

If the viewership included the China region, this number would be a total of 68.8 million hours of content watched. In comparison, 2018 saw 44.9 million hours watched instead. Many esports titles and tournament organizers will publish two sets of data due to how Chinese sites often differ in their methodology when counting viewership numbers.

Nevertheless, the statistics show that season 10 is considered the most successful season in all of ESL Pro League history, and esports is only attracting a larger audience as the industry continues to establish itself.