On July 16th, the Riyadh Masters 2024 playoffs began with the first set of matches. After the group stage, 16 teams remained in the hunt for the Dota 2 championship title. The day's highlight was the much-anticipated clash between Team Liquid and Team Spirit.
Team Liquid's surprising victory over Team Spirit shocked many fans. Their last win against the Russian team was a year ago during The Bali Major 2023. Since then, Team Spirit has defeated Team Liquid four times in official tournaments, including The International 2023.
The most exciting series of the day was between Team Falcons and WBG.XG, requiring all three maps to determine a winner, with Team Falcons winning two. Other matches saw Gaimin Gladiators defeating Entity and Tundra Esports outplaying OG, both with decisive 2:0 scores.
Looking ahead to the second round of the upper bracket, Team Falcons will face Gaimin Gladiators, while Team Liquid will challenge Tundra Esports. The other teams will continue their campaign in the lower bracket. Notably, Team Spirit faces a crucial elimination match against LGD Gaming, where the Chinese team could potentially eliminate the defending champions from the Riyadh Masters 2023.
First Day of Riyadh Masters 2024 Playoffs Viewership Statistics
The first day of the Riyadh Masters 2024 playoffs saw a decline in viewer statistics compared to last year's tournament, primarily due to the new schedule format. Last year, matches were played consecutively, resulting in a game day that lasted nearly 16 hours. In contrast, Riyadh Masters 2024 featured two out of four series running concurrently, reducing the total broadcast time to just 10.5 hours.
Both average and peak viewer numbers for the playoff broadcasts were lower than those of Riyadh Masters 2023. The most notable decreases were in major languages such as Russian and English. The drop in Russian viewership was attributed to the shift from the Paragon studio, which hosted last year's Russian-language broadcasts, to betboom channels for this year's tournament. This change led to a significant disparity, with Paragon's channel boasting twice the peak viewership and five times more hours watched. However, some of the decline was offset by increased viewership on the Nix channel, the most popular Russian community caster for the tournament, which peaked at 83.5 thousand viewers on the first playoff day, marking their highest viewership since February.
The decrease in English viewership was largely influenced by a shift in primary broadcasting channels. During Riyadh Masters 2023, matches were aired on the prominent ewc channel, while ewc_dota2 and ewc_dota2_en2, less popular channels, served as secondary options. However, for Riyadh Masters 2024, the ewc channel was no longer utilized, and this change contributed to audience dispersion across multiple parallel broadcasts, which did not benefit the tournament.
As the second day of the Riyadh Masters 2024 playoffs nears its end, WBG.XG has eliminated Aurora from the tournament. The results of the remaining two matchups will be determined in the coming hours. For updates on tournament progress and viewer statistics, visit the event's coverage page.