The ESL 
Pro League for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has made its way to Twitch , and even though the competition doesn’t have the same sort of clout that a Major holds, it’s leaving a mark on the platform in terms of viewership.
In 2018, English and Portuguese coverage of ESL Pro League action, which started in 2015, was exclusively streamed on Facebook, but following a reworked deal with Facebook Gaming earlier this year, ESL was allowed to stream on other platforms as well. This includes a return to YouTube, where the league was exclusively shown throughout 2017.
Though ESL still has a non-exclusive partnership with Facebook Gaming, viewership for the ESL Pro League has notable this month making ESL_CSGO one of the top 10 most-watched channels on Twitch so far in April.
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The move to Twitch also comes as the league expanded each of its three regions, North America, Europe, and Asia, to include 16 teams, with a new group-based format that includes some in-studio matches, as opposed to its regional phase that was previously exclusively online.
While the ESL Pro League isn’t a Major, it still boasts a lineup of the world’s top teams like Astralis and Team Liquid, and the season spans a significantly larger time frame in comparison as well.
The ESL Pro League’s new system is more like an extended tournament than a typical sports league, though it lasts roughly the same amount of time as, say, a League of Legends split. Majors are divided into three phases that are played in three weeks, but ESL’s Pro League will see its three rounds take place in three different months.
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While the final week of a Major typically gives CS:GO some of the strongest Twitch viewership of the year, the two weeks before it also provide a strong surge for viewership.For the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice Major earlier this year, viewership across all three weeks generated 21.5M hours watched on ESL’s CS:GO Twitch channel, with an average of 55K CCV from Feb. 12-March 5.
So far ESL Pro League action has helped ESL_CSGO generate 3.4M hours watched on Twitch in the first round of the leagues’ three-part format. For comparison, the first stage in the most recent Major pulled 5.91M hours watched.
Credit: ESL
Along with the ESL Pro League not having the “Major” tag to it, the tournaments’ spread out nature makes it unique to other high-profile CS:GO events. While it hasn’t produced the sort of hours watched totals that a Major typically does, it has still averaged 20-30K concurrent viewers for many of its live sessions on Twitch peaking at 60K CCV so far.
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Twitch viewership doesn’t account for the full audience of the ESL Pro League, but the ability for the endemic platform to generate respectable viewership immediately after ESL and Facebook Gaming broke exclusive streaming rights speaks volumes to Twitch’s power. As the league moves into its second phase, viewership could see a slight jump the same way a Major sees viewership increase from week to week.
The second round of the ESL Pro League will see the 16 teams from each region cut in half, and even though there will be a lower number of total matches for the new pool play phase, the average viewership numbers can be expected to increase as the top teams vie for a spot in the finals that will be played in June.
It’s unclear what kind of effect the spread out nature of the Pro League will have on Twitch viewership, but as the event broadcasts on Twitch for the first time since 2016, it’s apparent that even in its early stages ESL’s Pro League can attract viewers to the gaming endemic platform.
