Despite the ELEAGUE Major being over, its record-breaking viewership is still sending ripples throughout the esports world.
In addition to breaking viewership records on both Twitch and GOTV, the Major was home to some of the most exciting and unexpected matchups and victories to date in professional CS:GO. It is incredible to think that something which was considered niche a few years ago, is now being broadcast on national television and has garnered millions of views both online and on TV.
It was so big, in fact, that the ELEAGUE TV Twitch channel was the first to ever surpass one million viewers, making it the #1 channel on Twitch for all seven days. On top of the million Twitch views, the tournament also achieved over 2.6 million views across Facebook and Twitter as well as more than 45 million impressions on both platforms. It’s worth remembering that this means that DOTA 2 failed to achieve these heights, and so did League of Legends and Call of Duty. Where they failed, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive succeeded. If that doesn’t show that the game is still fully alive and breathing, then nothing else will.
To give you a better idea of the kind of monumental records this event broke, Turner and WME | IMG, the creators of ELEAGUE, gave us the following infographic and list of records their event broke:
What does this mean for CS:GO and esports in general? Well given that this is the first truly successful attempt to televise professional esports and that it has been so well received and praised by the audience, it could very well mean that the myth of esports surpassing traditional sports in views could come true. All we can do is wait and observe the magnificent birth of mainstream esports.
Esports Insider says: With such insane crowd engagement on their first Major, it seems ELEAGUE is well on its way to transforming esports into something bigger than many could have imagined just a year or two ago.