The BLAST Premier World Final 2022, the last large LAN tournament in the competitive CS:GO calendar, concluded over the weekend and has recorded significantly lower viewership numbers compared to previous years.
The tournament, which saw G2 Esports win a major trophy after more than 1000 days, peaked at 378,000 viewers, according to Esports Charts.
The BLAST Premier World Final is the last BLAST event of the season. It gathers together the best CS:GO teams from the previous year and has a prize pool of $1m (~£820,000). The first edition of the World Final under this format took place in 2021 after it replaced the BLAST Premier Global Final.
The peak viewership of 378,000 places the Global Final at 14th place, when compared with other BLAST events. Interestingly, the event is behind both its Spring groups and Spring finals, as well as Fall groups and Fall finals of 2022, two smaller-scale events that have prize pools less than half of the Global Final ($425,000 compared to $1m).
The tournament saw the viewership drop to around half of its previous edition with the BLAST Premier World Final 2021 garnering 727,000 viewers, compared to the 378,000 for this edition. The most-watched match of the 2022 Finals was the grand final between G2 Esports and Team Liquid.
The BLAST Premier World Final 2022’s viewership is a far cry from IEM Cologne 2022 and IEM Katowice 2022, two other $1m CS:GO tournaments that were organised by BLAST’s competitor ESL Gaming. Both of these tournaments saw more than one million viewers tune in.
The BLAST Premier World Final 2022 also took place in Abu Dhabi, a location deemed controversial for many, including notable figures in the esports industry such as Richard Lewis. The United Arab Emirates faces backlash similar to World Cup hosts Qatar and Saudi Arabia, most notably because of human rights violations.
