Major Esports Events Close Out 2024 with Record-Breaking Viewership
The final month of 2024 showcased the growing diversity of competitive gaming, with mobile esports leading the charge in viewership numbers while traditional PC titles maintained their strong following. Several tournaments set new benchmarks for audience engagement across different platforms and regions.
Mobile Gaming Dominates Global Viewership
The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang M6 World Championship emerged as the season’s heavyweight, drawing an extraordinary 4.1 million concurrent viewers during its climactic final between Fnatic ONIC PH and Team Liquid ID. Held in Kuala Lumpur, the tournament highlighted the intense rivalry between Indonesian and Filipino teams. While it didn’t break the series’ peak viewership record, the M6 Championship achieved a new milestone for total watch time in the tournament’s history.
PUBG Mobile also made a strong showing with its Global Championship 2024, nearly reaching the million-viewer mark with 985,000+ concurrent viewers. The tournament became the most-watched PUBG Mobile event in three years, featuring a nail-biting conclusion where South Korea’s Dplus secured victory over Turkey’s Regnum Carya Bra Esports by the smallest of margins.
The Arena of Valor International Championship 2024 attracted 762,000 peak concurrent viewers, showcasing top talent from across Asia. Bacon Time’s decisive 4-0 victory over BanMei Gaming in the finals, while impressive, may have prevented even higher viewership numbers due to its one-sided nature.
PC Gaming Maintains Its Ground
The Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 led the PC gaming category, achieving 1.3 million peak viewers during the Grand Finals between Team Spirit and FaZe Clan. This turnout was particularly impressive given the potential viewership limitations caused by time zone differences between China and Western audiences.
Red Bull made history with its “League of Its Own” tournament, which successfully merged professional competition with entertainment. The event featured prestigious organizations like T1, G2 Esports, and Karmine Corp, alongside popular streamer teams. The matchup between T1 and Los Ratones drew over 612,000 concurrent viewers, setting a new record for Red Bull gaming events.
English-Speaking Audience Preferences
The English-speaking viewership showed distinct preferences, focusing primarily on Counter-Strike and League of Legends content. Notably, esports football gained significant traction in this demographic, with both the FC Pro 25 Open and the FIFAe World Cup (hosted in eFootball) attracting over 200,000 English-speaking concurrent viewers each.
Streaming Platform Dynamics
Twitch remained the primary platform for PC gaming content, with the Shanghai Major dominating the platform’s esports coverage. Popular streamer Caedrel captured significant attention during his team’s matchup against world champions T1. The EA Sports FC channel also performed strongly, boosted by in-game reward incentives for viewers of the FC Pro 25 Open tournament streams.
This diverse range of successful events across multiple platforms and genres demonstrates the continued growth and evolution of the esports ecosystem as we head into 2025.