Record attendance and digital engagement for ESL One Cologne 2017
Cologne’s LANXESS arena was once again host to ESL’s flagship independent Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event in the ESL One series. The world’s best CS:GO teams battled for a share of the $250,000 prize pool in a six day long competition that concluded on July 9, when Brazilian team SK Gaming was crowned the champions of ESL One Cologne 2017. This win is also the first that will count towards the Intel Grand Slam, a new format that will award a $1,000,000 prize for the first team that wins four of the last ten competitions in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in any of the major ESL and DreamHack events.
Sold out LANXESS arena welcomed over 15,000 fans on each of the event days, making ESL One Cologne 2017 the most attended event since its inception in 2014. The event saw record-breaking digital engagement across all metrics, with more than 30 million unique social media platform users generating over 209 million impressions. Online and linear viewership clocked in at over 62 million sessions, and accounted for more than 13 million hours of consumed content. ESL One Cologne was also streamed in Virtual Reality, where over 180,000 unique viewers tuned into broadcast through SliverTV.
“Our fans have named LANXESS arena and ESL One Cologne the ‘Cathedral of Counter-Strike’ and we couldn’t be prouder,” said Ulrich Schulze, Vice President Pro Gaming at ESL. “It’s been incredibly rewarding and humbling at the same time to see how much this event has grown and improved over the years. We will continue building its legacy for years to come, and are looking forward to making it even better next year.”
Next to watching a world class CS:GO competition, visitors on site enjoyed an array of side-activities, including meet & greet opportunities, signing sessions with the pro players, and giveaways from sponsors and partners. The event also featured an appearance from DJ TheFatRat, who kicked off the opening ceremony for the Grand Finals with a live performance of the official ESL One Cologne 2017 song,Fly Away.
Next up in the ESL One series is ESL One New York 2017, taking place at the Barclays Center in New York, on September 16-17. Check out our official event website for more information, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
ESL, a part of the international digital entertainment group MTG, is the world’s largest esports company, leading the industry across the most popular video games with numerous online and offline competitions. It operates high profile, branded international and national leagues and tournaments such as the Intel® Extreme Masters, ESL One, ESL National Championships and other top tier stadium-size events, as well as grassroots amateur cups, leagues and matchmaking systems. ESL covers a broad field of services in gaming technology, event management, advertising and television production, fully catering to the needs of the esports ecosystem. With offices in North America, Germany, Russia, France, Poland, Spain, China, and partners in many other countries, it has a truly global footprint (www.eslgaming.com).
