Last week saw the conclusion of the ESL Pro League Season Six, with Brazilian side SK Gaming taking the title and winning the lion’s share of the $1,000,000 prize pool. The broadcast set new records for ESL, with a digital peak of 388,000 concurrent online viewers (excluding China) which represented a 95% growth when compared to Season Five which took place last June.
The Sparekassen Fyn Arena welcomed sold out crowds on each of the three event days, ushering in more than 5,000 dedicated Counter-Strike fans each day and was the fastest Pro League Finals to sell out to date.
The ESL release states that over four million hours of content have been consumed through 27 live streams, in a whopping 18 different languages and eight TV broadcasts. Over 110,000,000 social media impressions were achieved across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
“We are very happy about such a successful debut of the CS:GO Pro League Finals in Denmark,” said Ulrich Schulze Senior Vice President of Product at ESL. “The atmosphere in the sold out Sparekassen Fyn Arena in Odense was incredible, and the Danish crowd definitely lived up to everyones expectations. It was a great event to wrap up the year and we are looking forward to even more excitement in 2018.”
“Congratulations to SK Gaming on both their Pro League win and second win toward the Intel Grand Slam series, as well as the other extremely talented participating teams that help make Pro League the world’s best league for CS:GO,” said Ken Hershman, Executive Chairman and Commissioner, WESA. “We are very pleased with the turnout in attendance and viewership for this season’s finals, and we are looking forward to what next season brings.”
The next season of the ESL Pro League will get underway in February with another $1,000,000 on the line. The matches will be broadcast on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday each week as SK Gaming look to defend their crown.
Esports Insider says: There was undoubtedly some cracking Counter-Strike on show out in Odense – and it’s no surprise that a Danish crowd packed out the arena and the event sold out in record time. The finals were on YouTube and given the growth – it goes to show that moving from Twitch isn’t all that bad after all.
