In November 2013, ESL broke records with its Intel Extreme Masters in Cologne event as viewership skyrocketed to 302,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch. The Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in Katowice saw that number and topped it by over 200k, reaching a peak of 511,000 concurrent viewers on stream. Michal "Carmac" Blicharz, Managing Director of Pro Gaming at ESL, summed up all of our feelings pretty well:
To summarize our event, our team put together an infographic, which you can see below.
The numbers surrounding the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship are pretty staggering.
With people tuning in from over 180 countries, an amazing 23,164,454 video plays were recorded, as reported by Forbes. It's not hard to understand why when you take a look back at the games the competition showcased: onGamers' Johan "Sun_Tzu" Järvinen took a closer look at the four disciplines with comments from known eSports personalities such as Travis Gafford and Duncan "Thorin" Shields. Check out the full article here.
Of course, let's not forget the EMS One Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competition that took place in the Spodek Arena alongside the Intel Extreme Masters. With a US$250,000 prize pool and record-breaking viewership numbers, the Counter-Strike tournament is definitely worth a look back on. Join Patrick Howell O'Neill as he takes a look back on EMS One and Intel Extreme Masters over on DailyDot
