Annual Club Incentive Update – Post IEM Cologne

Back from the summer break meant the second ESL Pro Tour Championship in 2025, seeing IEM Cologne gather 24 of the worlds best teams at our fifth event out of seven this year.

The reigning champions Team Vitality were dethroned in the semi-finals, with their over-powering force MOUZ eventually falling to Team Spirit in the Grand Final. Young prodigy Danil "donk" Kryshkovets having now won both IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne, as well as a Counter-Strike Major, all at the age of 18.

With the results in, we turn to an update to the Annual Club Incentive. The average concurrent viewership is based on the highest value of a team in either Stage 1 or Stage 2, only the highest and only one value per team is included. Playoffs are not included as it heavily favours those select teams advancing, these teams are already being rewarded via the Club Reward. Out of the 24 teams participating, only the top 12 ranked teams by average concurrent viewers were awarded viewership points based on the previously announced points matrix.

IEM Cologne 2025Viewership placement

Posição
Team Name
Average CCV
Viewership points
1
Team Falcons
479,088
8
2
FURIA
358,560
8
3
Team Spirit
358,241
8
4
Team Vitality
320,690
8
5
Natus Vincere
304,024
6
6
Astralis
302,225
6
7
MOUZ
301,672
6
8
The MongolZ
293,086
6
9
FaZe Clan
285,980
4
10
G2 Esports
237,858
4
11
Aurora Gaming
194,798
4
12
HEROIC
175,016
4
13
GamerLegion
167,388
0
14
Team Liquid
150,055
0
15
BIG
137,657
0
16
paiN Gaming
137,194
0
17
NIP
129,118
0
18
FlyQuest
122,509
0
19
TYLOO
90,655
0
20
Virtus.pro
88,477
0
21
3DAMX
85,691
0
22
Complexity
74,491
0
23
MIBR
65,930
0
24
B8 Esports
55,853
0

The Falcons debut for Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin attracted lots of attention from the community, which ultimately saw the team achieve the highest average viewership out of all attending teams. The most attention from an event peak concurrent viewers stance took place during the Team Spirit and MOUZ Grand Final clash, peaking over 1,000,000.

IEM Cologne was the fifth event of the year contributing to the Annual Club Incentive, the event distributed 72 viewership points, out of the 720 points available in 2025. There’s 234 points still up for grabs across the remaining two events; ESL Pro League Season 22 and IEM Chengdu.

As the fifth event of the year, the Event Multiplier continues to favour teams who consistently attended our events in 2025, generating the below current standings for the Annual Club Incentive.

Team Falcons remain at the top, extending their lead to second place since the previous update in June.

August 11th, 2025Annual Club Incentive

Posição
Team Name
Total
viewership
points
Events
attended
Total points
Total points
share
Share
1
Team Falcons
48.5
5
242.5
13.4%
$394,581
2
Team Vitality
42
5
210
11.6%
$341,699
3
Team Liquid
38.5
5
192.5
10.6%
$313,224
4
Natus Vincere
40
4
160
8.8%
$260,342
5
The MongolZ
31.5
5
157.5
8.7%
$256,274
6
FURIA
37
4
148
8.2%
$240,816
7
FaZe Clan
33
4
132
7.3%
$214,782
8
MOUZ
25
5
125
6.9%
$203,392
9
G2 Esports
26
4
104
5.7%
$169,222
10
Team Spirit
26.5
3
79.5
4.4%
$129,357
11
3DMAX
13
5
65
3.6%
$105,764
12
HEROIC
16
4
64
3.5%
$104,137
13
Virtus.pro
13
3
39
2.2%
$63,458
14
Eternal Fire
18
2
36
2.0%
$58,577
15
GamerLegion
6
5
30
1.7%
$48,814
16
Pain Gaming
7
4
28
1.5%
$45,560

The $2,950,000 Annual Club Incentive concludes end-of-year 2025 and is paid out in Q1 of 2026 to the top 16 teams in the standings. Full details about how the Annual Club Incentive is calculated can be found here.

Next on the ESL Pro Tour calendar is ESL Pro League Season 22, set to take place in our Stockholm studios between September 28 - October 12. Stay tuned for another update to the Annual Club Incentive standings after its conclusion.

Outro

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