Last weekend, the Commerzbank Arena in Germany saw ESL One Frankfurt 2015 hit a peak concurrent viewership of over one million - more than double its record from the previous year - as more than a million viewers tuned in simultaneously on Twitch in the western world and MarsTV in China.
This followed the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in Katowice, Poland, earlier in the year, which broke Twitch global streaming records for the highest concurrent viewership across a single event with a peak of approximately 1.6 million views.
ESL One Frankfurt 2015 also attracted more than 15,000 Dota 2 fans to the Commerzbank Arena itself on each day of the event, with foot traffic exceeding 30,000 across the weekend as a whole. With side attractions including archery, bull riding, gladiator duels and personalized team tattoos and Dota 2 balloons, there was a lot to enjoy in addition to the action-packed tournament itself.
Ulrich Schulze, managing director of pro gaming at ESL, said of the event’s success:
“ESL One Frankfurt 2015 was a great combination of esports tournament and gaming festival. It was very important to us that we make ESL One Frankfurt 2015 more than just an esports competition. We’re looking to continually build on this with future ESL One events.”
It was Team Secret who all those fans watched beat three-time ESL One finalist Evil Geniuses for the lion’s share of the US$298,135 prize pool, and you can see all the top-notch Dota 2 action again over at the ESL YouTube channel (or for the first time if you missed out).
A second ESL One Frankfurt champion was also crowned - Roman Pivec, whose fantastic Timbersaw cosplay took him over 300 hours to make and won him first place and top prize in the event’s cosplay competition. With 43 participants from 10 different countries having competed for almost US$5,000 of prizes, his victory was well earned.
A massive thank you to all our sponsors and fans, who helped make ESL Frankfurt 2015 a truly epic experience, and we hope to see you at the Theater at Madison Square Garden for ESL One’s next installment at New York Super Week!
