The Thunderpick World Championship 2024, held from October 21 and concluding at the LVL Dome Arena in Berlin, saw a substantial increase in viewership compared to its 2023 debut. Much of this boost came from the presence of the iconic player s1mple, whose immense fanbase brings dedicated viewers whenever he plays.
The MongolZ’s victory secured them a spot among Valve’s top five teams (Image via Thunderpick on X).
In this year’s event, major teams like HEROIC, Virtus.pro, Fnatic, and BIG competed fiercely. But it was the emerging MongolZ who clinched the top prize of $500,000 and entered the top five Counter-Strike 2 rankings.
The championship reached a peak viewership of 246.6K on Day 1 of the Group Stage in the Virtus.pro vs. Team Falcons matchup. Surprisingly, the Grand Final didn’t make the top five most-watched matches, landing instead in seventh place, while other matches featuring The MongolZ ranked higher.
Even with only two matches before being eliminated, Team Falcons drew significant viewership thanks to s1mple, who was playing on loan from NAVI. Although he delivered strong performances, the team ended last in Group A with a 0:2 record.
The 2024 tournament achieved nearly 250K peak viewers, a 71% increase from 2023. Primarily due to the magnetism of Ukrainian star s1mple, whose games attracted large audiences across multiple platforms.
overall stats
Thunderpick World Championship 2024’s overall stats highlighted 3.7 million hours watched and an average of 41.8K viewers over 88 hours of broadcast. With coverage channels nearly doubling from 59 to 100.
Among the teams, Team Falcons led viewership by a wide margin thanks to s1mple’s presence, averaging 72.2% more viewers than any other team. This marked more than twice the audience of last year’s top team.
Russian viewership also surged. With its share of total watch time rising over 10% and peak concurrent viewership climbing by 200%, especially during Virtus.pro’s match against Team Falcons.
The Thunderpick World Championship 2024 showed how popular players and teams can significantly shape esports viewership trends. It’s intriguing to consider what the numbers might have been had s1mple reached the later rounds, though his early presence alone helped drive the event’s viewership to record levels.