- The last CS:GO Major recorded the third-highest peak viewership in CS:GO history
- This is a surprising outcome, considering it’s the last CS:GO Major ever
- Some speculate the relatively low numbers are due to one of the finalists being relatively unknown
BLAST Paris Major recorded the third-highest peak viewership at its grand final, lagging behind the Stockholm and the Antwerp Majors.
Paris Major Records Surprising Stats
Ever since it was announced in March this year that CS:GO would be transitioning to Counter-Strike 2 sometime in the summer, there has been much talk that BLAST Premier Paris Major would be the last such event to be played on the original game. Because of this, it was a no-brainer that the event would draw in a huge crowd. However, considering this was the last CS:GO Major, it scored just the third-highest peak viewership in history.
The BLAST Premier Paris Major, which was won by Vitality, didn’t manage to surpass both the PGL Major Stockholm and the PGL Major Antwerp. With its 2.7 million peak viewers, the Stockholm event sits at the top. This is to be expected, as the event was the first Major since 2019 due to COVID and the only ever Major with a $2 million prize pool. The Antwerp CS:GO Major sits in second place with its 2.1 million peak viewers.
However, the Paris Major, with it barely breaking 1.5 million in peak viewership, drags behind in third place. When it comes to hours watched Paris actually falls to fifth place, according to Esports Charts. That being said, this could be contributed to the fact that the Paris Major was a bit shorter than other similar tournaments.
The Stockholm Major reigns supreme when it comes to hours watched with its over 71 million spread across 120h 10m of airtime. Interestingly, the IEM Rio Major slots in at second place with 69.5m (126h 50m airtime), showing that although its peak viewership was not that high, its retention of watchers was very consistent.
The Antwerp Major and the FACEIT Major London come up next with their 68.1 million (116h 10m airtime), and 61 million (150h 25m airtime) hours watched respectively. Finally, in fifth place comes trailing the Paris Major with its 59 million hours watched spread across 116h of airtime.
Vitality and GamerLegion’s grand final match was the most-watched game of the event, which is the one that recorded the 1.5 million peak in viewership. However, it is perhaps this exact reason why the Paris Major lags behind previous events. Although Vitality is a famous team, GamerLegion is not so. Because of this, the Major was not able to draw upon GamerLegion’s relatively small fanbase to boost its numbers.
Regardless of the stats, the BLAST Premier Paris Major will go down in history as the last CS:GO Major ever.
