The BLAST R6 Major Manchester 2024 has increased its peak viewership by over 40,000 compared to BLAST R6 Major Copenhagen 2023, which occurred at a similar time last year.
The first Rainbow Six Major of 2024, which took place in Manchester’s B.E.C Arena, recorded a peak viewership of 162,094, according to esports data platform Esports Charts.
The Manchester Major also recorded an average viewership of 65,632, much higher than the 44,642 average of the Copenhagen Major from the year prior. The most popular Rainbow Six Siege Major continues to be the Six Major Raleigh 2019 which garnered a peak viewership of 268,650.
This year’s Major follows a very successful Six Invitational for BLAST and Ubisoft following a multi-year deal between both parties in 2022. The flagship event for 2023 went against a downward trend of viewership and peaked at 521,349 viewers.
The BLAST R6 Major Manchester 2024 was won by American esports organisation, and huge underdogs, beastcoast which took down Swiss esports organisation Team BDS in the Grand Final. Despite coming second, Team BDS were the joint most-watched team at the event alongside Team Liquid with 1.4m hours watched. beastcoast was second with 1.3m hours watched.
The majority of the viewership for the event came from English language broadcasts (122,022) whilst Portuguese (50,535) and Japanese (12,568) had the second and third most peak viewers respectively.
In terms of streaming platforms, most continued to use Twitch (133,060) over YouTube (31,698), as is often seen during R6 esports events. There was also a small minority of viewers who preferred to watch on TikTok (4,249), SteamTV (1,075), and CHZZK (191).
The rise of viewership is a good look for BLAST as it continues to grow the R6 esports ecosystem and is looking forward to running its newly announced Dota 2 esports circuit.
The next BLAST Rainbow Six Siege Major will be held in Montreal this November.
