Dota 2 EPICENTER Major qualifiers have gathered 15,4 million views worldwide*. The qualifier matches for EPICENTER XL, last year’s Major series tournament in Moscow, gathered nearly two times fewer views – 7,8 million. Meanwhile the total amount of broadcast hours on Twitch amounted to 866 in 2019 as compared to EPICENTER XL 2018’s 1100 hours.
The viewer count for the qualifier stage of DPC 2018-2019 season’s fifth Major reached 177 147 during the CIS region grand-final of Virtus.pro versus Natus Vincere. Notably, EPICENTER XL’s qualifiers final viewer count peaked at 67 668 under the same conditions. Overall, more than 5,5 million unique users viewed EPICENTER Major, exceeding last year’s figure by more than 1,2 million.
The Russian broadcast of the upcoming Major’s qualifiers engaged more than 10 million views, with 3 million unique views. The previous year’s CIS broadcast gathered 4,4 million views and 2,3 million unique users.
EPICENTER Major in Dota 2 with a prize pool of $1 000 000 will take place in Moscow from June 22 to June 30. 14 out of 16 participating teams advanced to the main event through CIS, China, Europe, South America, North America, and Southeast Asia regional qualifiers. Two remaining spots are reserved for the participants of the previous Minor.
Epic Esports Events (a member of ESforce Holding) is the organizer of the EPICENTER Major. The tournament operator specializes in hosting international competitions and is the organizer behind EPICENTER Dota 2 and CS:GO series in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Their first Dota 2 series was deemed the best Live Entertainment event by a leading European award EUBEA 2016, and EPICENTER XL 2019 was awarded the first place in nomination Russian Event per Eventex Awards.
*excluding statistics from China
ESforce Holding is one of the world’s largest esports organizations and the leader of electronic sports in Russia. The holding company integrates all key areas of the esports business, from organizing international tournaments and professional content creation to publishing and advertising activities as well as online retail sales of esports-themed merchandise. ESforce owns over 220 popular online resources with a combined audience of 12 million followers and 114 million annual unique visitors, which provide a 90-percent reach to esports broadcast viewers in Russia and the CIS as well as access to a significant share of relevant international audiences. In 2018, the holding became part of the largest technology company in Russia, Mail.Ru Group.