IEM Chengdu was most popular CS event in Chinese history
Esports Charts claims that IEM Chengdu 2024 was the most-watched Counter-Strike event held in China with a peak of 366,460 viewing watching the final between MOUZ and FaZe on the morning of April 14th. There was a total 7.6 million hours watched and 151.3 thousand average viewers across the 51 hours of airtime. The event notably beat out the CS Asia Championships 2023 which had a peak viewership of 185,473.
Liquid and FURIA also made their mark on the event despite not making it to the final. Both organizations featured in the top five most-watched matches at ESL's Chinese event.
FURIA's second-round game against MOUZ saw a peak viewership of 253,758 people tuning in to the game, which is notable considering the game was broadcast at 08:30AM, which was 10:30am in Brazil. No other group stage game reached the same level of attention through the three opening days of competition.
Liquid's opening playoff game against FaZe was the third-most watched game of the week-long event with 321,800 peak viewers. The game was broadcast at 06:15AM, with west coast North American fans needing to make the tough decision to either wake up in the early hours of the morning or to stay awake all night if they wanted to see their regional superteam attempt to dethrone the reigning Intel Grand Slam champions.
Liquid would eventually lose the tightly contested match 2-1, but the squad showed a dramatic improvement against international competition in their first LAN since the disastrous 2024 PGL Copenhagen Major Americas RMR, where they were eliminated at the hands of Complexity in the 2-1 match.
Fans of the squad won't have to wake up in the early hours to see Liquid play next as they are already headed home to play in the Esports World Cup qualifiers which begin tomorrow evening.
