FACEIT has revealed that the Esports Championship Series (ECS) Season 6 Finals was officially the most watched CS:GO Livestream ever on YouTube. The stream reached a peak concurrent viewership of 233,950 on the English language broadcast.

The full broadcast saw a total of 3.2 million hours of total watch time, with 2.4 million of those coming during the Finals. YouTube has been the exclusive home of the ECS since Season 4 in 2017, with FACEIT stating that ” the monumental viewership figures recorded for Season 6 represent the continued success of the partnership”

Michele Attisani, CBO and co-founder of FACEIT, had this to say about the news: “We’re constantly working with YouTube to bring our fans the best possible viewing experience and to see that effort reflected in such phenomenal viewing figures is extremely rewarding. The ever increasing ECS viewership proves the immense strength of YouTube as an esports viewing platform and we’re excited to keep building that audience together. We’re continually developing new ways to engage with our viewers such as the loot drop system we introduced in Season 4.”

ECS is the FACEIT owned CS:GO league and has become one of the most anticipated events in the CS:GO and esports calender. The ECS was also the first professional esports league to offer teams co-ownership and revenue share, something that’s become all the rage in 2018 with the Overwatch League, NA LCS and LEC, all getting in on the action.

The ECS Season 6 Finals took place at the newly opened Esports Stadium Arlington. Danish superteam Astralis took the crown against MIBR and claimed their share of the $660,000 (£520,000) prize pool.

Esports Insider says: If an esports event is not on Twitch, fans are quick to judge the event and say it will fail. While some games have failed when they’ve left Twitch, the ECS is showing that with a loyal fanbase and a good event, fans will flock to a platform to watch the very best of esports.

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