From a shortened three-week season to hilarious skits, ESL Pro League Season 19 was a success on all fronts, rewarding the organizers with an average viewer rating that increased for the first time in two years.

Although peak viewing hours for the grand final between MOUZ and Vitality on May 12 were lower, average viewership for Counter Strike 2 this EPL season was its highest since Season 16 in 2022, according to Esports Charts. An average of 154,967 fans tuned in during the tournament, up almost 20 percent from 2023, as over 370,000 watched MOUZ win the EPL and claim back-to-back league titles.

One of the biggest complaints within the CS2 community was the length of EPL, with many feeling that investing over a month into a single event was stretching the interest too far. As such, the sprawling 24-team tournament was shortened to a fast-paced three-week format for Season 19, with matches played across two streams. This, combined with a heavy investment from the organizers to up the entertainment factor of EPL through well-produced skits, helped to generate a buzz among the crowd in May.

The casting and hosting talent at ESL Pro League were given the reins for content with a plethora of short skits that resonated with the community. It wasn’t just the casters, either, as some of CS2’s best players showed off their acting chops in a wide variety of clips that mimicked pop culture and movies like Fight Club, The Lord of the Rings, and Dune. “The production with all the skits, casters, and atmosphere really makes it a huge and entertaining experience, even without an arena full of people,” one fan said in a May 12 Reddit thread.