Both Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League Of Legends broke viewership records over the weekend, with esports tournaments for each game attracting millions of viewers.
Last weekend (November 6 – November 7) was an action-packed two days for esports fans. While Saturday marked the League Of Legends World Championship finals, it was quickly followed up by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive‘s Major Championship final on Sunday.
The League Of Legends finals – in which China’s EDward Gaming beat Korea’s Damwon Gaming in a dramatic five-game series – attracted over 4million peak viewers at one point. What makes this number even more impressive is that it only includes viewership outside of China, where the game is watched outside of traditionally-tracked streaming platforms.
Riot usually shares information on total viewership shortly after Worlds, so fans may not have to wait long to hear how many people tuned in across the world.
Over in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the grand finals between NaVi and G2 managed to reach over 2.5million peak viewers when NaVi closed out the series 2-0, despite a neck-and-neck closer on Nuke. As noted by Dot Esports, Sunday’s peak viewership for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive smashed the game’s prior record of 1.3million peak viewers, which was set back in 2017.
Similarly, League Of Legends‘ peak viewership on Saturday broke not only its own viewership record, it was actually the most-watched esports event ever for non-mobile games (thanks, Esports Charts).
While their viewership numbers may not have been counted in current stats, clips of fans celebrating in China suggests that the League Of Legends final was a momentous occasion.
In other news, a Call Of Duty: Vanguard tournament has been disrupted by a cheating scandal, after it turned out that one of the competitors was using hacks to secure upset wins.
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