It’s the first day of the Legends stage and records are being broken.

The CS: GO Major in Brazil has had thousands of live viewers at the venue cheering their favorite teams on. Needless to say, the Brazilian rosters get the loudest cheers, but quality Counter-Strike has also been appreciated at the venue. The passion for Counter-Strike in the South American country is clearly evident at this Major.

There are three stages to the IEM Rio Major - Challengers stage, Legends stage and the Champions stage. Usually CS: GO Majors don’t feature a live audience for the earlier stages, but this time, ESL decided to break the norm. Thousands of viewers have been in attendance and the decibel levels have been astonishing to say the least. And the craze for the tournament is evident as the IEM Rio Major viewership has already crossed seven digits well before the playoffs.


CS: GO viewership crosses seven digits 

On Day 1 of the Legends stage the highest concurrent viewers for the IEM Rio CS: GO Major crossed seven digits. 

The IEM Rio Major surpassed a million concurrent viewers and it's not even playoffs yet. Screengrab via <a href="https://escharts.com/tournaments/csgo/intel-extreme-masters-xvii-rio-major-2022" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Escharts.com</a>.
The IEM Rio Major surpassed a million concurrent viewers and it's not even playoffs yet. Screengrab via Escharts.com.

As has been the case this Major, there were multiple streams playing different matches at the same time.

When the milestone was reached there were two matches ongoing:

  • NAVI vs Team Vitality
  • Fnatic vs NiP

The Navi vs Team Vitality match was one for the ages. Both teams are title contenders this tournament. Vitality has a roster of superstars who can step up to the occasion and put up impressive performances quite easily. On the other hand we have NAVI, a team that dominated the scene not so long ago. With S1mple on one side and Zywoo on the other, this match was always going to be an exciting one.

But the Bo1 match went to overtime and then another and then another. Ultimately NAVI won with a 25-21 score, but the match was extremely balanced and it could have had a different winner. It isn't really that big of a surprise to see the IEM Rio Major viewership cross a million already.


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