Local streams drive 155% increase in average session length, totaling 31 million online hours watched
ESL One Cologne 2016 goes down the history books as the world’s largest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event in the game’s competitive history. Over 14,000 people attended the live spectacle on each of the main event days, with online viewership remaining steady in the year-on-year comparison. The all-American final of this year’s second Valve Major once again crowned the Brazilian players from SK Gaming, who beat North American Team Liquid in a clean 2-0 victory.
Viewers on online platforms, including Twitch, Azubu, Hitbox and Yahoo!, consumed a total of 31 million hours. Compared to last year’s event, online viewers spent on average 155% more time in each of the 68.6 million sessions. Additional linear TV broadcasters in Brazil, Bulgaria, Germany, Czech Republic, Finland and other Nordic and Baltic countries brought the broadcast to 31.4 million households in all regions combined. The content was delivered in 17 languages, with significant spikes in local viewership in China (+527% YoY), Brazil (+103% YoY) and Spain (+20% YoY), solidifying the trend of esports spreading to more corners of the world with localized broadcasts driving viewership.
“Creating legendary esports moments is our core principle, and ESL One Cologne 2016 did exactly that. Not only did we see some fantastic games at this Major, we also pushed the limits of fan experience and online broadcast by introducing new technology and creative elements to the show” said Ulrich Schulze, VP Pro Gaming at ESL.”I am intensely proud of this event and the team who made it happen. We’re definitely ready for ESL One Cologne 2017 to return to LANXESS arena, bigger and better than ever.”
ESL One Cologne also recorded at least double digits growth for all social media metrics for ESL’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat channels. With 40 million impressions on Twitter, 69 million impressions on Facebook, and 10 million video views, these metrics have grown by 135%, 60% and 100% respectively. The event has reached over 7.5 million unique fans on social media, doubling last year’s reach.
The event also marks a year of ESL’s efforts toward bringing a unified anti-doping policy and doping control for esports events across all events in the ESL One, Pro League and IEM circuits. Newly established Esports Integrity Coalition, which ESL joined as the Founding Member, held individual educational sessions with a number of participating teams and supervised all doping control activities at the event.
ESL One Cologne will return to the LANXESS arena in 2017, when Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will once again take over the stadium on July 7-9, 2017. Tickets for the event are on sale starting today. For more information about ESL One Cologne visit the official website.