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The International 10 Sets New Viewership Record

The most-watched Dota 2 The International to date
by Tit Krajnik on October 22, 2021   

Dota 2's main tournament of the year, The International, is in the rear-view mirror, having ended with Team Spirit emerging as a surprise winner. The Russian squad took home the lion's share of the record $40 million prize pool; however, TI10's prize pool was not the only record-breaking element of the tournament.

 

TI10 Viewership Up 35% From TI9

Dota 2's The International 10 did not need long to start setting new viewership records, as it already surpassed TI9's viewership on the first day. While TI9 recorded an average number of prime-time broadcast viewers of about 600-650k people on the first day, TI10's numbers were approximately 35% higher.

Although a significant increase, it makes a lot of sense. The Dota 2 fans have been waiting for TI10 for two years after it got cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

However, perhaps the most impactful change with TI10 was its convenient time. Having been hosted in Romania, TI10 broadcast time drew in far more European viewers than TI9, which was held in China.

As a result, most of TI9's games started either at night or very early in the morning for European fans. On the other side, TI10 games played out in the morning for European time and around noon for the Chinese audience.

 

The Battle With LoL World Championship

Although many factors helped TI10 post impressive viewership numbers, it also had to fight for viewers with League of Legends. TI10 started on the third day of the 2021 LoL World Championship Play-In stage, while the LoL Worlds Main event took off while TI10 was already in full swing.

Unsurprisingly, the 2021 LoL Worlds outpaced TI10 in viewership and held a healthy lead. And while it was expected for the LoL Worlds to outshine TI, the Dota 2 Championship outperformed LoL Worlds on the first day of acton (third day of LoL Worlds), leading in the number of unique viewers.

It's worth noting that this likely happened due to the nature of the games played at the LoL Worlds. The third day of 2021 LoL Worlds Play-In saw its average viewers drop by 16% compared to day two, when CIS participants, Unicorns of Love, were already eliminated; hence most CIS viewers likely transitioned to The International.

That said, in terms of unique viewers, 2021 LoL Worlds outperformed TI10 by quite a significant margin, averaging 2.5 million unique viewers to TI10's 1.9 million.

 

The Finals Peak At Over 2.7 Million Viewers

The International 10 finals between PSG.LGD and Team Spirit peaked at 2.7 million viewers, setting a new viewership record. It was a 37% increase from TI9's final match between Team Liquid and OG.
 


Interestingly, Team Spirit, were the most-watched team at TI10, attracting 33% of total hours watched and having been involved in the three of the most-watched matches of the tournament. Besides the final match, that also includes their clash with Team Secret (1,818,080 viewers) and Invictus Gaming (1,485,299 viewers).

Spirit's miracle run also helped draw in viewership from Eastern Europe, with the grand finals boasting 1.2 million concurrent viewers across all Russian-speaking streams. This set a new record for CIS viewership and the regional record for hours watched (41.2 million), making TI10 the region's most popular Dota 2 Championship.

The CIS viewership peak of 1.2 million for the finals also surpassed all English streams, at one million.

The International 10 peaked at 1.7 million viewers on Twitch, over 622,000 on YouTube, and 114,000 on Facebook Gaming. In addition, DotaTV added 188,000 concurrent viewers for the grand finals, setting a new platform record, surpassing its previous of 186,000 during the TI8 finals.

TI10 averaged 107.2 million hours watched, which is almost a 20 million hours increase from TI9. What's more, it averaged 857,343 viewers across the tournament, which marked quite a substantial increase from TI9's 738,873 average viewers.

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