The Electronic Sports League (ESL), an organizer of the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice, announced that the event held in „Spodek” on March 14-16 was the one of the most viewed professional gaming events of all time.
The Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in Katowice broke a series of previous ESL TV records. One of the IEM World Championship finals viewed by 511 000 concurrent viewers on Twitch – the world’s leading video platform and community for gamers – making it the single most viewed match in ESL history. The previous record was set at 302 000 concurrent viewers during Intel Extreme Masters Cologne in November, 2013.
„It was only six or seven years ago that we were happy to see 12 000 concurrent online viewers on a single match” – said Michal Blicharz, managing director of Pro Gaming at ESL. „We had 12 000 watching matches live in Katowice and hundreds of thousands online. This growth is simply mind blowing.”
Concurrent viewership across all games for the overall event peaked at 643 000 on Twitch alone, while projected total concurrent viewership including Asia is over a million. It is another record for ESL, beating the 318 000 set at Intel Extreme Masters Katowice in January 2013.
Overall, viewers from over 180 countries worldwide produced 23 164 454 video plays and consumed 12 648 666 hours of broadcast, nearly doubling the result of the 2013 Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in Hannover, Germany. Twitch also reported that the event was one of the most successful in the history of its company.
„E-sports events now regularly attract a global audience which rivals cable and broadcast television-sized audiences” – said Stuart Saw, regional director, EMEA, Twitch. „Intel Extreme Masters World Championship is one of the industry’s premier events and is a standard-bearer for its high level of gameplay, production quality, and audience engagement.”
