Esports Insider collaborates with esports analytical firm Esports Charts to take a look at event viewership on a month-by-month basis.
There isn’t a standard viewership metric that’s utilised and agreed upon by all parties in the industry at this point in time so it’s not always possible to compare events with a fair approach. Peak viewership isn’t the best way to see just how many people watched throughout an event, but comparing average audience numbers also has its problems considering some events can last a day and others a month.
With that in mind, we’ll be utilising peak viewership to observe the maximum audience that esports events are attracting. Here are the results for esports events in April 2020!
Most popular tournaments of April 2020
If you’ve been keeping a close eye on the popularity of mobile esports in Asia and South America then it may not surprise you to find out that MPL ID Season 5, a tournament for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, tops the charts when it comes to peak viewership in April.
Despite it being the only entry for mobile esports in the top five events, Indonesian viewership helped it to achieve a peak of 1,163,007 viewers. What’s perhaps most impressive is that it managed to top both the LCK and LEC, which ranked in second and third place respectively.
Gen.G Esports taking on T1 was the biggest draw for the LCK throughout the month, achieving a peak viewership of 1,074,561, whereas G2 Esports and Fnatic’s battle in the LEC Spring finals reached a height of 817,397 viewers. Twitch Rivals’ VALORANT tournament and ESL One Los Angeles’ Europe & CIS division round out the top five for April.
What’s worth noting is that the industry has shifted to accommodate the changes brought on by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Events as we know them can’t be executed so many tournament organisers have transitioned their events to online play, while others have been forced to delay operations for months. Those who had to go with the latter have missed out on entertaining millions of people who’re specifically looking to be entertained – especially with the absence of traditional sports and other entertainment products.