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This past weekend saw the Intel Extreme Masters head to Oakland for the first time, with the event pulling in almost half a million concurrent viewers.
IEM Oakland reached a peak of 490,000 concurrent viewers across the globe with broadcasts in 14 different languages. Online viewers ended up watching almost 6.4 million hours of content throughout the event.
The event was also broadcast in VR thanks to SLIVER.tv. Earlier today James Dean, founder and CO-MD at ESL, said that numbers for their VR live streams have not been massive so far, when speaking at the Future Games Summit. However the IEM Oakland VR stream managed to bring in 130,000 unique viewers, which sounds fairly impressive. The VR stream also included real-time augmented live stats the first time ever.
We have put an amazing tournament in the Bay Area for a third year in a row and our continued success shows the tremendous potential of esports,” said Michal Blicharz, vice president of pro gaming at ESL. Holding marquee events like IEM brings true fans together, both in person and online, to join in the excitement at a global scale. We look forward to enhancing these premiere experiences in future events for both players and fans.”
Thank you to the thousands of energetic fans who joined us at Oracle Arena for IEM Oakland, and to the millions who followed the online livestreams,” said George Woo, esports marketing manager at Intel. Intel Extreme Masters continues to be a fantastic showcase for Intel’s innovative gaming products that are the backbone of any esports experience. Congrats to the winners and we look forward to connecting with everyone at IEM Gyeonggi in December.”
The event saw Ninjas in Pyjamas come out on top in the CS:GO competition while Unicorns of Love won the League of Legends competition. CLG Red also defeated Team Secret in a $10,000 charity match while Stanford University beat rivals from the University of California in a League of Legends showmatch.
