IEM Cologne Major grand final becomes the most viewed CS match of all time

Though the grand final wasn't quite as competitive as some of the previous series in the playoffs, the IEM Cologne Major grand final nonetheless broke the viewership record to become the most-watched Counter-Strike match of all time. The players and brands on the server with Falcons and FURIA were always going to be big, but this was special.

Though the final number may grow, as of the writing of this article, the grand final had a peak viewership of roughly 2,750,000 viewers.

This number just barely beats the record set by the grand final at PGL Stockholm between G2 and NAVI, which had a peak viewership of roughly 2,748,000. That final benefited massively from being the first Major back after the long COVID break, as well as being a much closer affair.

FURIA weren't able to win a map, but none were complete blowouts as each ended 13-8. The FURIA brand and presence of Brazilian icon Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo are big drivers for viewership among the South American co-streamers. Couple that with box-office players like Nikola "NiKo" Kovač, Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov, and Finn "karrigan" Andersen, and you've got a recipe for a record-breaker.

Another interesting viewership statistic is the total hours watched for the event. Basically, if two people watch something for an hour, that's two hours watched. This takes every match into account, and IEM Cologne broke that record too with over 100 million hours watched overall. Modern Majors benefit from more matches and Stage 3 was fully bo3 for the first time, but this is still an insane milestone.