The main audience of Ukrainian esports broadcasts of Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 is now young adults aged 25 to 34. The broadcasts themselves are already second only to football and basketball in popularity in Ukraine.
The main audience of Ukrainian esports broadcasts of Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 is now young adults aged 25 to 34. The broadcasts themselves are already second only to football and basketball in popularity in Ukraine.
This is evidenced by analytical data from the Ukrainian studio Maincast, which is part of the ARS Capital holding of businessman Maksym Krippa. According to the study, viewers aged 25–34 make up 64,7% of the audience in Dota 2 broadcasts, and 54,7% in Counter-Strike 2. In general, young people aged 18 to 34 account for 75% of Dota 2 viewers and 78% of Counter-Strike 2 fans.
At the same time, analysts have recorded an increase in the share of the older generation. The segment of viewers aged 35–44 is 21,7% for Dota 2 and 16,5% for CS2. The share of the audience over 45 remains small — less than 4%. Analysts explain this trend by the fact that the audience that became interested in esports 10–15 years ago has grown, but has retained its preferences.
«We see a natural process of the industry maturing. The generation of viewers that started watching esports ten to fifteen years ago are now young professionals, but continue to remain an active part of the audience. This indicates the maturity of the market. Esports is gradually transforming from a niche digital hobby into a full-fledged segment of the global entertainment industry,» said Maksym Krippa.
According to the analytical platform Streams Charts, Counter-Strike remains one of the most popular disciplines in the Ukrainian segment of Twitch, having collected over 13 million hours of viewing per year. According to Maincast, esports itself has already reached the third place in popularity among sports broadcasts in Ukraine. At the same time, views of Ukrainian-language content on YouTube have increased by 4,000% compared to the initial indicator of 2022, and an additional growth of 42% was recorded over the past year.
Earlier, the analytical platform Esports Charts, which specializes in data analysis in the field of esports and streaming, launched an official Ukrainian localization. Now users can view statistics, tournament pages, teams, individual players and other analytical metrics in Ukrainian. The company notes that the key factor for launching the Ukrainian version was the high activity of the local community and the rapid growth of traffic from Ukraine.
