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Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2025 in Poland has recorded its highest opening IEM Katowice viewership since 2020, according to Esports Charts.
The Counter-Strike esports event drew 412,714 peak viewers during the match between Furia and women’s CS2 team Imperial fe in the play-ins, two of the teams taking part at the start of IEM Katowice 2025 this year.
And concurrent viewers were just under 400,000 for the series, reports Esports Charts, an increase of around 70,000 compared to the same time last year.
Imperial had a good showing on the first map, but ultimately lost 13-16 and 1-13 to Furia.
They were then knocked out of the tournament by BIG 13-4 and 13-5.
It’s worth noting that one of fe’s players, IGL tory, missed out on the tournament due to visa issues, with male coach bubble stepping in.
On day one of play-ins, the event received some 2.68m hours watched, Esports Charts reported, an increase of roughly 57% compared to last year’s Katowice opening day.
Watch time was also up, given play-ins having a best-of-three format for 2025, compared to 2024’s best-of-ones. And YouTube viewership was up 93.8% year-on-year to a peak of 121,909 viewers, with Brazilian viewers preferring YouTube to Twitch.
However, Portuguese and Russian peak viewership numbers for the first two days of the tournament were lower year-on-year.
So far though, overall, IEM Katowice viewership has been strong as the tournament has continued.
Day one of the IEM Katowice 2025 group stage drew more than 500,000 peak viewers, with the most-watched match being G2 versus Virtus Pro.
Today more Group A matches are set to take place, including Virtus Pro vs Eternal Fire and Vitality vs Faze in the upper bracket.
In the lower bracket, G2 will face Falcons and 3DMax will go up against BIG.
We’ll be back with more coverage around IEM Katowice 2025 powered by the event’s official hardware partner, Predator Gaming.
And don’t miss our IEM Katowice 2025 grand final watch party at London’s Platform bar on Sunday February 9th!
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He has almost two decades of experience in journalism, and left Esports News UK in June 2025.
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 also previously worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation.
