The third season of the ESL Pro League saw double-digit growth across all viewership metrics, thereby becoming the product's most successful cycle to date. The tournament series fostered development throughout the nine week competition and saw a peak year-on-year growth of over 44% for online content consumed.
Globally, season viewership saw a 40% increase, reaching more than 61 million online sessions with over 1.2 million unique viewers tuning in for the final day of the tournament alone - an increase of over 30%. An average of 180,000 people tuned in for each match throughout the third season of the ESL CS:GO Pro League, which when combined with the sold-out London area marks the largest UK viewership of an FPS event in the industry.
"The ESL CS:GO Pro League's continued and consistent growth and evolution is something that we are immensely proud of," said Ulrich Schulze, VP Pro Gaming at ESL. "It is a testament to the product that in a community as rich and diverse in competition as the Counter-Strike one, the ESL Pro League continues to perform at the pinnacle."
Throughout the season finals in London, content shared through Facebook amassed a total of 5.3 million views. A combined total of over 39 million impressions were recorded on ESL-owned social media, with an astounding 5.7 million engagements fostered on Twitter and Facebook. Peak interactions were reached during the closing games of the tournament, when Luminosity Gaming beat out G2 Esports in a five game series to take home the US$200,000 lion's share of the US$750,000 season's prize pool.
