IEM Cologne 2024 reaches third highest non-Major peak in CS history at 1.05M viewers

Only the 2022 editions of IEM Cologne and IEM Katowice reached higher peak viewer counts than Vitality and Natus Vincere's barn burner of a final.

IEM Cologne 2024's grand final broke the 1,000,000-viewer mark, making it the event with the third-highest peak in Counter-Strike history outside of the Majors.

Its peak count of 1,051,810, recorded during the final by Esports Charts, puts the 2024 edition of IEM Cologne in a select group of only four non-Major events to break the 1M viewer barrier.

Most-watched non-Major events of all time, per Esports Charts

IEM Cologne 2022 - 1,249,426
IEM Katowice 2022 - 1,122,015
IEM Cologne 2024 - 1,051,810
IEM Katowice 2020 - 1,002,132
IEM Katowice 2024 - 972,312

This year's IEM Cologne only trails IEM Katowice 2022 and IEM Cologne 2022, two events that FaZe won in dramatic fashion. First over G2, in a series which included a 31-27 marathon on Mirage, and then over Natus Vincere in one of the greatest series of all time, a best-of-five that went the distance.

The Vitality and Natus Vincere final from this year's thriller now joins that pantheon, edging ahead of the IEM Katowice 2020 final between G2 and Natus Vincere that was held without fans at the Spodek Arena due to the outbreak of Covid-19.

IEM Cologne 2024 reaching 1.05 million viewers puts it in 12th place on the all-time Esports Charts list once you include Majors, ahead of PGL Major Krakow 2017 (961,413) and StarLadder Major Berlin (836,306).

It's still far below the all-time peak of 2.7 million viewers, however, which was reached at the first post-pandemic arena event, PGL Major Stockholm 2021, and the CS2 peak of 1.85 million hit at PGL Major Copenhagen earlier in 2024.