ESL Pro League Season 21 Kicks Off with Strong Brazilian Viewership
The prestigious ESL Pro League Season 21 is currently underway in Stockholm, Sweden, with the world’s elite Counter-Strike teams competing for a share of the million-dollar prize pool. With Stage 1 now complete, Esports Charts has published viewership data highlighting the impressive dominance of Brazilian teams in audience engagement.
New Tournament Format
This season introduces significant structural changes, reducing the participant count from 32 to 24 teams. The tournament now features two Swiss Stages followed by a streamlined single-elimination playoff bracket with 8 teams, replacing the previous format of a group stage leading into a larger double-elimination playoff bracket. This substantial reorganization makes direct viewership comparisons with previous seasons challenging.
Stage 1 Viewership Metrics
Stage 1 generated over 6,500,000 Hours Watched, with an average audience of 120,167 viewers and a peak of 254,114. While these figures show a slight decrease compared to Season 20’s Group Stage, this can be attributed to the absence of several top-tier teams from Stage 1, including Natus Vincere, G2 Esports, and Team Spirit, who received direct invitations to Stage 2.
Brazilian Dominance
The most-watched match of Stage 1 featured paiN Gaming against Nemiga, drawing 222,118 viewers. This crucial fifth-round Swiss Stage matchup determined advancement, with paiN Gaming securing a 2-1 victory. All three Brazilian teams participating in Stage 1—paiN Gaming, MIBR, and FURIA Esports—successfully advanced to Stage 2.
Language Preferences
Portuguese-language broadcasts led viewership across all languages, driven by the success of the three Brazilian teams and Portuguese team SAW. Renowned Brazilian streamer Alexandre “Gaules” Borba Chiqueta contributed significantly to these numbers through simultaneous broadcasts on both Twitch and YouTube.
Turkish broadcasts also performed exceptionally well, with peak viewership surpassing Russian-language streams, largely thanks to Ömer “imoRR” Karataş’s broadcasts on Kick and the success of Turkish team Eternal Fire.
Looking Ahead to Stage 2
Stage 2 runs from March 7 to March 11, with only 8 of the 16 competing teams advancing to the playoffs. First-round matchups include:
Team Falcons vs Team Liquid
Team Spirit vs TYLOO
Natus Vincere vs SAW
Team Vitality vs MIBR
MOUZ vs FURIA
G2 Esports vs paiN Gaming
The MongolZ vs GamerLegion
Eternal Fire vs 3DMAX
