PGL Stockholm Major, the first Valve-sponsored tournament in over two years, has already beat its predecessor, StarLadder Berlin Major, in terms of peak audience, according to Esports Charts.
The Stockholm Major has been hosting the first day of the Legends Stage, the one before the playoffs, and had a total of 895,572 viewers turn on one of today’s streams at the peak viewership. The match with the most audience was Heroic vs. Na`Vi earlier today with 629,787 concurrent viewers. In comparison, StarLadder Berlin Major, which took place between August and September 2019, peaked at 836,616 viewers, a milestone reached during the grand finals.
These audience numbers show how eager the CS:GO community was for the Major after waiting over two years. In addition to the Major, all premier CS:GO tournaments switched to an online setup instead of LANs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic’s health and safety protocols. PGL Stockholm is just the second S-tier LAN in 2021, the first one being IEM Cologne in July.
The numbers will likely go higher when elimination and advancement matches start to take place tomorrow in the Legends Stage. The main broadcast is attracting the most viewers, but the Russian and Portuguese ones are also performing well.
ELEAGUE Boston Major in January 2018 holds the all-time record for peak CS:GO viewers, when 1,329,096 people turned on the broadcast to watch the epic Cloud9 vs. FaZe bout. The PGL Stockholm Major may beat that number when the playoffs kick off on Nov. 4 at the Avicii Arena.
