Esports tournament organiser PGL says its recent CSGO Antwerp Major 2022 was the largest indoor esports event ever.
More than 20,000 CSGO fans attended the final day of the PGL Antwerp Major, which saw FaZe Clan beat Navi in the grand final.
With 68m+ hours watched and peak viewership of 2.1m according to escharts.com, the competition also became the second biggest Counter-Strike tournament, only eclipsed by the 2021 PGL Stockholm Major, which once again had a host of talent on board.
PGL also said that as the final unfolded, it measured a staggering 106 decibels created by the crowd inside the arena – volumes typical of a concert, nightclub or symphony orchestra.
It all started with 52 teams who, over the last month, battled it out for the chance to play in front of an audience in Sportpaleis Antwerpen in Belgium and a shot at crowning themselves as the best team in the world.
More than 40,000 people attended the event overall, with 20,000 on the final day.
“We are delighted to see that all of our hard work has paid off, which has led us to have hosted the two most-watched Counter-Strike tournaments to date. The crowd was absolutely fantastic, and the atmosphere was maybe the best there has ever been at an event like this.”
Silvu Stroie, PGL
In comparison, venues like the Spodek Arena, which hosts events like Intel Extreme Masters, has a capacity of 11,000. And Beijing’s open-roof Bird’s Nest stadium has a maximum capacity of 80,000, with some 40,000 attending the 2017 League of Legends Worlds final there.
Stream Hatchet also reported that Brazilian streamer Gaules’ co-stream of the Antwerp Major also did well. Viewers watched 18m hours on his channel during the tournament – around a third of the total hours watched.
PGL also published an update about being the second most valuable esports tournament organiser after ESL/FaceIt on Esports Charts here.
“We have been working very hard to improve our broadcast continuously, and these numbers show us that we are on the right path”, said PGL founder and CEO Silvu Stroie.
“We are delighted to see that all of our hard work has paid off, which has led us to have hosted the two most-watched Counter-Strike tournaments to date. The crowd was absolutely fantastic, and the atmosphere was maybe the best there has ever been at an event like this. Together with the entire CSGO community, we have taken this passion of ours to entirely new heights in the past couple of months.
“We are incredibly grateful for all the feedback from the audience that has helped us get to this position.”
The PGL Antwerp Major saw Frankie Ward return to esports hosting after maternity leave, a No Majors Club for PGL Antwerp by Richard Lewis, and Tom ‘Sneaky’ Taylor also produced a tourists’ travel guide for the PGL Antwerp Major.
Tom will be back with more content from the Major for Esports News UK soon, including a mix of talent interviews.
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
