BLAST has reported that Rainbow Six Siege (R6 Siege)’s Six Invitational 2024 is the most viewed R6 event ever, peaking at 521,349 viewers.
Held at the Ginásio do Ibirapuera Arena in São Paulo, Brazil the tournament’s Grand Final was a record-breaking one. The event recorded 521,349 peak viewers, surpassing the previous record held by the Six Invitational 2018, by more than 205,000, according to data platform Esports Charts.
Notably, the Six Invitational, which wrapped up on 25 February, boasted a staggering $3m prize pool, a significant increase compared to the prize pool of the 2018 Six Invitational, which was six times smaller.
The three ticketed day event was also a huge success, selling out ahead of the opening day, with more than 9,000 fans in attendance, taking full advantage of the in-person sponsorship activations that were set out by BLAST ahead of the event.
This news is a welcome surprise not only to BLAST, in which it was the company’s first year hosting the competition, but also to stakeholders in R6 Siege.
The BLAST R6 Major Atlanta 2023, the latest Major event, saw a significant downturn in viewership, marking it as the least popular Major in Rainbow Six’s history, with a peak viewership of under 80,000.
However, this recent news signals a pivotal moment for the game’s esports landscape, after concerns were raised about the title’s popularity in competitive gaming, due to a decline in peak viewership for each consecutive Six Invitational since the aforementioned 2018 event.
Looking at the outcome of the tournament, Brazilian organisation W7M Esports emerged victorious in the event, clinching the Grand Final against FaZe Clan and seizing a substantial portion of the $3m prize pool, netting $1m in front of their home crowd.
Delving deeper into the viewership statistics, W7M Esports also stood out as the most watched esports organisation at the event, accumulating a total of 5 million hours watched, surpassing the runner-up FaZe Clan by 1.4 million hours.
However, despite both FaZe Clan and W7M Esports fielding Brazilian rosters and the event taking place in the country, the majority of viewership came from English-speaking streams, reaching a peak of over 375,000 viewers, significantly surpassing Portuguese streams, which peaked at 118,483 viewers.
Additionally, Twitch emerged as the primary platform for viewership, with a peak of 459,619 viewers, in contrast to YouTube, which peaked at 58,942 viewers.
Looking forward, the company has announced that both Manchester and Montreal will host Majors in 2024, with the 2024 season’s culminating championship event the Six Invitational heading to the United States.
