Sargis "SK996" Khachatryan Watching competitive events has always been one of the most popular ways for people to entertain themselves. Nowadays, such competitive events are not limited to being your favorite sport matches, show-matches of real-life games. The digital world has become massive enough to reflect the real life sports but do things in it's own electronic way, where endless opportunities exist both for esports athletes and for people that like to watch esports. Imagine being able to watch whichever game attracts you most, for which you don’t even have to pay. And this is not just a gift to the esports communities out there. This helps esports orgs maintain their workflow and grow in different aspects, from competitive skills to marketing.
Esports is popular all over the globe. Esports viewership is also adding up year by year, as more and more competitive content is developed for the industry. Each and every event sets its own records in this big ocean of choice, and now it is your turn to pick a discipline and decide which teams or individuals to watch.
Who watches esports?
Asking the above mentioned question is like asking, “who watches traditional sports?”. It is obvious that there are people who want to see their favorite games being played in the best way possible without trying hard themselves. Or perhaps it is something that brings like-minded people together and makes them form communities. Some like to be the first to share the news on their home team/performer, or analyze the play of opponents. Some just do it as a leisure activity, sitting comfortably at home instead of sports bars or attending stadiums/arenas.
But saying it is esports fans that watch all those events sounds quite generalized, so there needs to be more grounded information. References show, esports is watched mostly among Generation Z, with whom the technology advances in high gaps annually. “90s kids” enjoy both playing video games and watching esports, so it is easy to guess that businesses are targeting this particular age group for expanding their brand awareness. Now, when we are done figuring out the masses interested in esports, it is time to glance at which countries and how many people there watch esports.
Esports viewership by countries
Traditional sports have millions of viewers. But is it the same for esports? Or can it be a reality some time later where esports viewership exceeded traditional sports viewership? The majority of esports followers come from the Asian countries. In fact, they have surpassed Europe and even the Americas in this manner. Here are the most viewers of official matches by country:
- China – 40%;
- Vietnam – 33%;;
- Philippines – 29%;
- Indonesia – 26%;
- Thailand – 25%;
- India – 24%;
- South Korea – 19%;
- U.A.E – 19%;
- Taiwan – 17%;
- Turkey 16%.
However, it is important to understand here that this happend due to massive popularity of mobile games and Asia-oriented games. But there're still disciplines that are most popular in EU or NA, with millions of people tuning in to watch this or that event based on those games.
Esports viewership by disciplines
Esports disciplines are plenty. It all comes down to the popular developers and the franchises that have entered the competitive collection. Team based games are as popular as individual titles. The highest average viewership stats, however, are divided between games like League of Legends, Dota 2, PUBG Mobile, CS:GO, etc.
League of Legends, for example, gains even more fame through Riot’s interaction with their fans outside from the esports industry. They've partnered with Netflix to release an animated series Arcane, which is simply a tell-tale of some characters from League of Legends, mostly Vi and Jinx. The movie got 9 Annie awards this year, and for future, the studio is planning to release the second season of it.
Dota 2 generates it's views not only because of the popularity of the game, but also due to the ridiculous amount of prize money spared for The International series. The latest held in 2021 had a $40,018,195 prize pool.
Counter Strike: Global Offensive attracts viewers for different reasons. Not only it is simply the easiest game to pick up and watch, but also the rise of in-game purchases, such as weapon skins, has made many creators and investors gain benefit from expensive deals, reaching up to thousands of dollars.
Most Watched Esports Events
The chart is topped by 2021’s Free Fire World Series. It had a whopping 5,414,953 peak viewers on air: pretty decent stats that compare to the biggest sports events and are actually surpassing many of them in viewership records. The interest in this discipline has a lot of reasons. It is accessible all over the globe, it is a mobile game, which is affordable for many more users, and the developer team always brings new content into the digital world of Free Fire. Lots of partnerships with movie, sports and media faces in general have raised the game’s popularity in Americas, Europe and Asia as well.
Second in the list comes the same-year world championship of League of Legends. Worlds, not counting the viewers from China, generated a total of 4,01 million concurrent viewers, with Edward Gaming beating DWG KIA in the grand best-of-5 finals. This was surely a boom in the competitive scene of PC titles.
Do you have to pay to watch esports?
Esports provide accessibility to masses, which means that most of the time they are free to watch. The games are most commonly streamed on Twitch or Youtube. In selected leagues, the broadcast might be exclusive to this or that streamer, or streaming service, but at the same time titles like VALORANT and League of Legends are often allowed to co-stream, which means that Riot Games does not find it a copyright violation.
The more technologies advance, the more means of entertainment enlarge. This is also applicable to a multi-million, or, should we say, a multi-billion dollar industry, called esports. In fact, there are not only gamers and professional players, but also an astonishing count of the audience across the different esports disciplines. It is true that the pandemic has hit each and every aspect of our lives, but the digital businesses have had enough growth meanwhile. This refers also to people’s hobby of playing video games, doing streams, and eventually watching esports. Many countries have their own favorite titles, which show pretty large interest in the form of audience engagement. Take for example Call of Duty and Overwatch series, that are popular shooters in North America, or Valve’s Dota 2 and CS:GO competitive games, that are attracting more the players and viewers from Europe. Looking at how many people watch esports, it is not hard to understand the pattern of development. Finally, the growth is natural — the more people are interacting with the online world, the higher are the chances they’ll end up discovering the sphere of esports as an entertainment and as a career. We've actually covered the best ways to get you started on the latter bumpy road.
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