The International 2018 is very special. Dota 2 loses playing audience for a very long time so we expected fewer viewers of The International 2018, the most important Dota 2 esports tournament of the year. But the reality appeared to be different.

Valve decided to make the experiment this year, the company made a single channel that broadcasts all the matches of the group stage at once. There could be four matches at the same time so the problem and its solution were relevant. Of course, if you wanted to watch some specific match you could watch it individually on one of the four channels.

There were problems on the first day of broadcast. The stream turned off several times, viewers could observe some technical issues. It forced a lot of spectators to watch the tournament on the individual streamer’s and amateur commentator’s channels. That is why there was a dramatic fall of a number of viewers on official channels.

All the problems were solved already on the next day and The International 2018 began to go uphill according to our statistics. The number of viewers of the group stage not from China increased by 45% and the number the number of Chinese viewers fell by 25% compared to The International 2017. It happened as the American and European teams demonstrated phenomenal performance while the biggest part of Chinese teams couldn't compete with them.



Group Stage, Day 1

Group Stage, Day 2



Group Stage, Day 3



Group Stage, Day 4



All teams also got a lot of new followers and subscribers on their social pages. Virtus.Pro and Winstrike received more than 570.000 in Vkontakte for several days. All thanks to special contest.

The group stage is not the play-off, but with such nice stats, we hope that the spectator’s activity will grow compared to the previous year.