Year-on-year increase of over 300% with almost 150% increase since ESL One Cologne 2014

(Cologne, Germany) March 26, 2015 – With a peak concurrent viewership of 1,012,745, the US$250,000 ESL One Katowice major broke multiple industry records for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The event, hosted at the 2015 Intel® Extreme Masters Expo, more than tripled numbers from the previous year with unprecedented viewership both online and offline. Organized by ESL, the world’s largest esports company, and supported by Intel, along with BenQ and HyperX, the event saw an increase of 150% in peak concurrent viewership since the record breaking ESL One Cologne major in August 2014.

Leading streaming platform, Twitch, saw Counter-Strike: Global Offensive become the ‘most watched’ game on the site for most of the competition’s duration. The company reported a ‘pure’ peak concurrent viewership (without in-game Steam numbers) of 861,368 during the finals, with an amazing 608,923 peak CCU for the English stream alone.

“The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community never fails to impress us,” said Ulrich Schulze, Managing Director of Pro Gaming at ESL. “ESL One Katowice saw 8,785,740 unique visitors tune in on Twitch over the four competition days and it’s each and every single one of those people we’d all like to thank. A total of almost 37 million Twitch sessions and over 16 million hours watched is just incredible to all of us at ESL. The event was a great success and we’re now more motivated than ever to bring an even better ESL One Cologne experience to the Counter-Strike community come August this year.”

For a full breakdown of the tournament and streaming statistics, take a look at the ESL One Katowice 2015 official Infographic. Photographs from the event are available on Flickr. For more information concerning ESL One Katowice and upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive events, such as ESL One Cologne in the LANXESS arena, please visit www.esl-one.com.