IEM Sydney came to an end on May, 5th with Team Liquid triumphing over Fnatic in a best of 5 with a comfortable score-line of 3-2. After losing 10 finals and finishing at 2nd place, Team Liquid was able to break past the silver medal curse and defeated Fnatic in what looked like Fnatic’s game at the start. The Grand Finale went the full distance of 5 maps which at first saw Fnatic leading the charts but later saw Team Liquid stepping up and comfortably finishing the game. The Grand Finale was sceptical to behold, with Team Liquid taking home a whopping US$ 250,000 prize money in front of fully packed Qudos Bank Arena.

With over 20 million viewers tuning in across the event and almost 10 million hours of Counter Strike content (up by 16% over 2018) watched by fans across the globe, this year’s event surpassed all previous viewership records for any esports tournament held in Australia. A solid Grand Finale helped push the numbers up even more. On Twitter, fans made over 36,000 tweets related to IEM Sydney 2019,while content surrounding the tournament was viewed over 55 million timesacross all platforms.

With ESL’s experience and expertise on board, followed by Intel providing the tournament with world class gear and equipment, the IEM Sydney was a huge success and performed exceptionally. Further, this time around the event saw no delays and was able to pump out even more content than last time, which also boosted the overall viewership and helped setting up the new viewership record.

Nick Vanzetti, MD & Senior Vice President of ESL APJ on the success of IEM Sydney said:

“IEM Sydney is a truly world-class event, and seeing our broadcast reach over 20million people around the world is a testament to the quality of the tournament. Between those who watched online and the 7,500 fans who attended each day of the main event, there is a growing appetite in Australia for the highest level of Counter-Strike.”

Followed by, John Bonini, Vice President and General Manager of VR, Gaming and Esports at Intel saying:

“We owe the continued success of Intel Extreme Masters Sydney to the esports community in Australia and around the world, which continues to grow at an incredible pace. This community is why Intel keeps fuelling this growth with more esports, more great content for PC gamers and more innovation when it comes to performance and power.”

With the end of the fourteenth Intel Extreme Masters in Sydney, posting such substantial viewership number gains over a period action-packed six days, ESL has delivered, like always. While the fans and esport enthusiasts also displayed significant affiliation and tuned-in in large numbers.