IEM Rio 2023 records peak viewership of 562,000

IEM Rio 2023
Image credit: Adela Sznajder, ESL FACEIT Group

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) competition IEM Rio 2023 concluded over the weekend, with the tournament recording a peak viewership of 562,249.

The event, which saw French organisation Team Vitality best the financially embattled Heroic in the final, secured an average concurrent viewership of 249,498, according to Esports Charts.

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The peak viewership figure was recorded during the semi-final matchup between Heroic and NAVI. In comparison to other CS:GO events, IEM Rio had the second-highest peak viewership of the year so far behind IEM Katowice (726,820).

Overall the event also garnered a total air-time of 57 hours and 55 minutes, and total hours watched was 14.45m

Heroic had the most hours watched of any team at the competition, with 5.4m. In second was Vitality — an organisation led by one of the world’s best players in ZywOo, who was the MVP of IEM Rio. Vitality participated in three of the five matches with the highest peak viewership, against Heroic, Cloud9 and BIG.

The Brazilian crowd was disappointed in the quarter-final when the last remaining Brazilian team, FURIA, was eliminated by Heroic.

Vitality built on its ESL Pro League win in October last year with the victory over Heroic, the latter of which in January, despite outstanding performances in CS:GO over the last couple of years, told its shareholders that further funding, to the tune of NOK 80m (~£6.2m) through 2025, is needed to maintain operations. The company stated that it needed NOK 10m (~£760,000) before the summer of 2023. Last month, it secured an investment of $1m (~£804,130).

There has been talk from some in the Counter-Strike community about competition fatigue. FaZe Clan player Twistzz said on Twitter that he is “exhausted.”

The BLAST.tv Paris Major takes place next month, which is likely to beat IEM Rio and IEM Katowice in terms of viewership. IEM Dallas also takes place from May 29th to June 4th.

Billy Studholme
Billy is Esports Insider's freelance Assistant Editor. He mostly reports on the business and economic landscape of esports. He has written for the Washington Post, Digiday, Dexerto, Esports.net and other outlets both endemic and non-endemic to the esports industry.