Gamers Without Borders continued its $10 million charity esports tournament initiative by bringing eight of the top Dota 2 teams together for three straight days of competition.
And throughout three days of competition and 23 hours of air time, GWP racked up 1.8 million hours watched.
In comparison to other longer events, that is more than OGA Dota PIT 2020 Online: China, which ran from May 1 to 11 and had just over one million hours watched, and is also above every ESL One Los Angeles region outside of Europe/CIS. Over those three days, the tournament also averaged 77,579 viewers, which puts it above WePlay! Pushka League Division 1.
And because there were only eight teams competing, most of the matches from the quarterfinals onward kept a high viewer retention, as they all averaged more than 100,000 viewers. The tournament peaked at 167,861 viewers during the quarterfinal match between OG and Nigma and almost reached those heights again when Natus Vincere and Team Secret clashed in the finals, hitting 161,736 for the series.
The overall viewership numbers are very impressive for the first Dota 2 event put on by GWP, but it is almost expected considering all of the top European and CIS teams were in attendance. That almost always guarantees a large viewership since China and EU/CIS are the two largest regions in terms of Dota viewership.
Out of every stat, being able to pull in nearly two million hours watched in under 23 hours of total air time is the most impressive. And should GWP choose to pursue future charity events in the Dota scene, this experience should give them some useful data to build on.
Secret won the event with a 3-0 sweep of Na’Vi and donated their $750,000 grand prize in two chunks, with $375,000 going to both the Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance and The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
