PGL Copenhagen Major is already making CS2 viewership history and it’s still in qualifiers

The hype for Counter-Strike 2’s first Major is growing at a breakneck speed with a record audience tuning in to catch the PGL Copenhagen Major RMR qualifiers and all but assuring the Danish Major will set new viewership records come mid-March.

The audience for the RMR closed qualifiers topped out at an impressive 245,617 concurrent viewers, according to a Jan. 29 report from stats tracking site Esports Charts, and we notably aren’t even at the RMRs themselves yet. Spanish caster Ibai Llanos, whose CS2 team Movistar KOI qualified for the European RMR, topped charts with 62,176 viewers during the European closed qualifier early a fortnight ago.

Impressively, over 5.5 million watch hours were recorded—a massive 65 percent increase compared to last year’s BLAST Paris Major RMR qualifiers—and apart from the addition of community streamers like ibai, Gaules, and ohnePixel, several other factors played a part in the viewership success of the preliminary CS2 matches.

It’s not lost on anyone that this PGL Copenhagen Major is the first for CS2, but much like the Stockholm Major in 2021, the next Major comes after an elongated break between pinnacle events. The Stockholm Major kicked off a year after the StarLadder Berlin Major in 2019 as the COVID-19 pandemic meant travel and event hosting was impossible. 2023’s Major’s delay, however, came at the hands of Valve, who opted only to run one Major as it became clear CS2 would not be competitively ready for top-tier play in time for a second Major.

Compounding further interest in the RMR qualifiers was the team list; with limited spots for direct RMR invites, some of the world’s best and most popular squads like Natus Vincere, Cloud9, Heroic, and Astralis were made to battle through the open and closed qualifiers just to make it to the RMR, meaning some heavyweight matchups were already locked in.

The closed qualifiers themselves weren’t without their faults, but cheating allegations and tech issues aside, a perfect storm was created and hype was in overdrive as the world’s best CS2 teams battled across the three major regions.

CS2 fans’ eager appetite will be sated this week with IEM Katowice, but then we’ll see whether February’s RMRs have what it takes to keep the records tumbling.