The International 2026 becomes Dota 2’s third most-watched tournament ever

Zloster Published August 25, 2026

The International 2026 delivered intense Dota 2 esports action that fans hoped for. With this, the tournament has become one of the most watched editions of the tournament.

At TI15, we saw legendary performances and the historic championship run from Team Spirit as millions saw them dominate on the big stage.

Speaking of millions, data from Esports Charts show that TI15 reached a total of 1,792,174 peak viewers. These numbers make The International 2026 the third most-watched Dota 2 tournament in history. In fact, it actually became the most popular The International in the last 5 years.

TI15 has accumulated around 64.35 million hours watched, which is an increase of 1.9% from last year. These stats are impressive, but there are a few other Dota 2 tournaments that were even more popular, so let’s check them out.

The International 2019: 1.96 million all-time peak viewers

Image credit: Valve

Seven years ago, the best Dota 2 teams also gathered in Shanghai for The International 2019, an event that broke all records at the time. Aside from featuring the highest prize pool in esports at the time ($34.3 million), it also drew a total of 1.96 million all-time peak viewers. This was a massive increase from The International 2018, which had 1.2 million peak viewers.

The International 2019 was one of the most impressive Dota 2 events ever because OG did the impossible and won the competition for the second time in a row. It was one of those tournaments that surprised many esports betting fans with its results.

The International 2021: 2.74 million peak viewers

Image credit: Valve

The International in 2021 remains the most popular Dota 2 tournament in the game’s history, and it’s not even close. We believe there were two main reasons for its success:

• The largest prize pool in Dota 2 and esports’ history – $40M
• The fact that there was no TI in 2020 due to the global pandemic

People surely remember that TI10 took place between October 7 to 17 in Bucharest and featured 18 of the best Dota 2 teams competing for the massive prize pool.

After a series of epic results, Team Spirit reigned supreme by defeating PSG.LGD in an epic best-of-five grand final. Winning this tournament gave the team a jaw-dropping reward of $18,208,300, which represented 45.5 percent of the total prize pool.

Other notable Dota 2 tournaments

Outside of the two tournaments that surpassed this year’s The International, Dota 2 has had many other notable events. For example, The International 2025 got close to 1.75 million viewers, slightly below this year’s result.

The Riyadh Masters 2023 (later renamed to the Esports World Cup) also deserves a spot with its 587,000 viewers. An interesting fact is that this tournament had a larger prize pool than The International in 2023 ($15 million vs $3.38 million).

Featured image credit: Valve