The International 2023, the largest Dota 2 event of the year, concluded last weekend in Seattle, United States with Team Spirit taking home a second The International title.
The tournament, however, recorded a slight drop in viewership when compared to its 2022 edition. According to esports data platform Esports Charts, the event peaked at around 1.44m viewers tuned into the broadcast, 300,000 less than last year.
This year’s edition saw the tournament return to Seattle, United States, after several years of taking place around the world. It also saw changes made to its competitive structure that intended to make the event more appealing to viewers.
The tournament saw 1.44m peak viewers and 541,000 average viewers, making it the fourth most-watched edition of the tournament. In terms of average viewership, The International 2023 only recorded 20,000 less than last year.
The most-watched organisation was not the champions, Team Spirit, but instead Gaimin Gladiators. The European organisation had around 2m more hours watched than Team Spirit, meaning that more viewers watched Gaimin Gladiators matches throughout the tournament. The most-watched language broadcast, according to Esports Charts, was Russian with around 815,000 viewers at its peak, followed by English with 457,000.
The International 10, which took place in 2021, is still the most-viewed Dota 2 event in history, with more than a million more viewers than the 2023 edition.
The most-watched match of the 2023 edition was the grand final between Team Spirit and Gaimin Gladiators, in which Spirit won 3:0, taking home its second-ever International title after winning the tournament in 2021. Team Spirit also won the Riyadh Masters 2023 and DreamLeague Season 21, making the organisation the most successful Dota 2 team of the year.
The International 2023 featured a reduced prize pool compared to previous years, with $3.1m (£2.5m) distributed to the top teams. In comparison, the 2022 edition had a prize pool of just under $19m (£15.6m) and the 2021 edition, which Team Spirit also won, had a prize pool of $40m (£32.8m).
