On the first day of the Legends stage, the number of spectators simultaneously watching the matches at IEM Rio Major 2022 exceeded 1 million. This stage of the tournament, which began on Saturday, features sixteen teams battling it out for the right to make the playoffs, with matches played to a packed Jeunesse Arena.
The Challengers stage has already broken the record for the most views for this stage of the tournament in the history of the majors. Now for Legends, a record number of 1,058,029 viewers was recorded at the peak and just under 500 thousand on average.
The most popular confrontation so far remains the game Imperial vs. Vitality, which took place at the Challengers stage – and was watched by almost 700 thousand people. Several other matches also drew over 600,000 spectators, notably Imperial vs Cloud9 and FURIA vs BIG. It should be taken into account that the matches of the first days of the Legends stage have not yet been included in these statistics, as the data on the number of views is updated with some delay.
The title of the most popular major is still held by PGL Stockholm, held in November 2021. Peak spectator numbers then exceeded 2.5 million (during the Grand Final), and it is possible that the final stage of IEM Rio will also approach such impressive figures.