The International 2019 was Twitch's most-watched Dota 2 event ever

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And pretty early in the morning, too.

Dota 2
(Image credit: Valve)

OG's decisive 3-1 victory over Team Liquid in the final round of The International 2019 was Twitch's most-watched Dota 2 event ever, according to a site that tracks viewership stats.

GitHyp reports 1.1 million viewers tuned in to the championship finals on Twitch, which took place in Shanghai and began at 10 a.m. local time. But Shanghai is literally on the opposite side of the world from the US' Eastern Time zone, meaning that for most of Twitch's western viewers, the Sunday morning tournament in China started late Saturday night.  In the western hemisphere, the tournament stretched on into the wee hours of Sunday morning and beyond.

That didn't seem to impact the viewership numbers, though. According to Esports Charts (which adds in viewers from other streaming platforms) the overall peak viewership for the tournament passed 1.9 million during the final round between OG and Team Liquid, and that's without factoring in Chinese streaming platforms. 

According to GitHyp's figures, this year's International saw a 51 percent increase over last year's TI8, which was held in Vancouver and saw a 100,000 decrease in viewership over the previous year's finals in Seattle.

That translates to more than a quarter million more viewers tuning in to this year's finals to see OG hoist the Aegis of Champions for the second time in a row.

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