IEM Rio Major breaks Challengers Stage viewership records

The opening day of play has already welcomed a record number of online spectators.

The long-awaited IEM Rio Major kicked off on Monday, finally bringing a Valve-sponsored event to Brazil after the original event, ESL One Rio 2020, was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The opening day didn't disappoint; an electrifying crowd greeted teams on stage, Cloud9, a heavy favourite to progress to the Legends Stage, currently face elimination after being sent down to the 0-2 pool, and viewership records were already broken as over 700,000 people tuned in to watch Imperial's opening matchup of the Major versus Vitality, according to Esports Charts.

Imperial's debut matchup versus Vitality had over 700,000 peak viewers

As expected, other Brazilian and South American teams drew the most attention. FURIA's opening match against BIG, where the Brazilians let a 15-8 lead slip to lose in overtime, drew in the second most amount of viewers at a peak of 699,767. Similarly, the South American derby between Imperial and 9z came in as the third most-watched game, pulling in 522,578 peak viewers.

The Major in Rio de Janeiro is also the second Valve-sanctioned event in history to welcome a live audience for every stage of the event — from the Challengers Stage all the way to the grand final.

Read more BIG deny Brazil's first victory with 8-15 comeback against FURIA

The PGL Stockholm Major in November 2021 currently holds the accolade as the most-watched event in CS:GO history. The $2,000,000 tournament in Sweden, which was the first Major to be held after the coronavirus pandemic, had a whopping 2,748,434 viewers at its peak. The following Major in Antwerp comes in at second, boasting 2,113,610 viewers at its height, with the grand final clash between FaZe and Natus Vincere recording over 1,000,000 more viewers than any other game throughout the tournament.

Both Imperial and 00NATION will soon fight for their tournament lives, as the second day of the IEM Rio Major will begin shortly with the following matchups:

1-1 pool (BO1)

Date	Matches
IEM Rio Major 2022 Challengers Stage
01/11/2022	Evil Geniuses15:00 9z	Match
01/11/2022	Vitality15:00 Outsiders	Match
01/11/2022	BIG16:40 Grayhound	Match
01/11/2022	OG16:55 FURIA	Match

2-0 pool (BO3)

Date	Matches
IEM Rio Major 2022 Challengers Stage
01/11/2022	MOUZ18:05 fnatic	Match
01/11/2022	GamerLegion22:25 Bad News Eagles	Match

0-2 pool (BO3)

Date	Matches
IEM Rio Major 2022 Challengers Stage
01/11/2022	00NATION18:55 IHC	Match
02/11/2022	Cloud900:00 Imperial	Match

FaZe #1 Finn 'karrigan' AndersenHåvard 'rain' NygaardRussel 'Twistzz' Van DulkenRobin 'ropz' KoolHelvijs 'broky' Saukants Imperial #18 Gabriel 'FalleN' ToledoFernando 'fer' AlvarengaRicardo 'boltz' PrassMarcelo 'chelo' CespedesVinicius 'VINI' Figueiredo Vitality #2 Dan 'apEX' MadesclairePeter 'dupreeh' RasmussenEmil 'Magisk' ReifMathieu 'ZywOo' HerbautLotan 'Spinx' Giladi Natus Vincere #4 Kirill 'Boombl4' MikhailovDenis 'electroNic' SharipovIlya 'Perfecto' ZalutskiyOleksandr 's1mple' KostylievValeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy BIG #15 Johannes 'tabseN' WodarzFlorian 'syrsoN' RischeNils 'k1to' GruhneKarim 'Krimbo' MoussaElias 's1n' Stein Cloud9 #5 Abay 'HObbit' KhassenovTimofey 'interz' YakushinSergey 'Ax1Le' RykhtorovDmitry 'sh1ro' SokolovVladislav 'nafany' Gorshkov 00NATION #27 Marcelo 'coldzera' DavidEpitacio 'TACO' de MeloEduardo 'dumau' WolkmerBruno 'latto' RebelattoSantino 'try' Rigal FURIA #10 Andrei 'arT' PiovezanYuri 'yuurih' SantosKaike 'KSCERATO' CeratoRafael 'saffee' CostaAndré 'drop' Abreu 9z #28 Maximiliano 'max' GonzalezFranco 'dgt' GarciaDavid 'dav1deuS' Tapia MaldonadoLucas 'nqz' SoaresNicolás 'buda' Kramer