IEM Krakow sets viewership record

The first IEM Krakow after the move from Katowice concluded this weekend. In the final, Vitality took the trophy and broke Astralis' record for the number of Big Event wins, putting a bright exclamation point on the debut tournament.

It wasn’t just the players who broke records. IEM Krakow itself became the most-watched non-Major Counter-Strike tournament in the history of the discipline.

According to Esports Charts, viewers spent 40,215,587 hours watching the event and generated a peak of 1,387,966 concurrent viewers. Among all tournaments, this is 13th place by hours watched and 8th by peak online viewership.

The leader by hours watched remains BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 with 76,130,773 hours, while by peak viewers it’s PGL Major Stockholm 2021 with 2,748,434. Both championships ran for more than 120 hours, whereas the IEM Krakow broadcast lasted only 86.

This continued the successful series of winter tournaments: previously, the non-Major record for peak online viewership was held by IEM Katowice 2025 with 1,299,747 viewers.