Esports tournaments have long featured grand prize pools worth millions of dollars and arena-filling spectacles of lights and sound. But there still remains a gap in the esports calendar, an Olympics-style event that combines the varied disciplines of esports across a range of genres into one mega-competition. Until now that is, as Saudi Arabia hosts the first ever Esports World Cup in Riyadh.
The Esports World Cup (EWC) is a multi-game tournament in which over 1500 players battle it out for their share of over $60M. Over the course of the eight week tournament (which began on the 3rd of July), pro teams from around the world compete in MOBAs, Shooters, Fighters, Battle Royales, and RTS games for the right to call themselves the world’s best gamers.
The massive scope of the EWC wouldn’t be possible without the financial backing of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, himself a fan of video games such as Call of Duty. But this is more than a mere passion project: The Saudi gaming market is valued at $1B as of 2024, thanks to previous initiatives such as funding new game development companies and hosting the precursor to the EWC, the Gamers8 tournament. With 70% of its people under the age of 35, Saudi Arabia is uniquely positioned to be the host of this massive gaming festival.
In this article, we’re looking at whether Saudi’s investment into the EWC translated into fittingly high viewership on live-streaming platforms, and what games during the EWC captured the majority of viewers’ attention.
The EWC 2024 Owes its Success to The Support of Co-streamers
On the whole, the EWC’s first week was a roaring success. In just five days and 61 hours of airtime, the EWC generated 27M hours watched with a peak viewership of 1.3M. This is a massive turnout for any event, let alone a multi-game tournament that can sometimes divide viewership over the course of its run.
Reflecting the global nature of the event, the languages of the viewers tuning in was truly diverse. Whilst English-speaking audiences made up the majority of viewership at 5.3M hours watched, Korean, Indonesian, Russian, and Portuguese-speaking audiences all generated over 1M hours watched each. A couple of languages were surprisingly underrepresented in the audience, including Spanish-speaking audiences with just 225K hours watched.
As seen with previous tournaments, co-streaming was integral to the EWC’s success. Exactly 50% of all EWC viewership came from co-streaming, amounting to 13.5M hours watched. Among the co-streamers contributing to this total was Brazilian streamer and former League of Legends pro player Baiano, who brought in 1.1M hours watched. Loltyler1 unsurprisingly also made it into the top 5 co-streamers, having appeared on the EWC’s opening ceremony stream. Korean streamers 김민교. and 울챔스 also contributed close to 1M hours watched each from streaming on AfreecaTV (now SOOP).
MOBAs Bring The Biggest Audience for The EWC 2024
Four games were played in the first week of the EWC: The three MOBAs League of Legends, Dota 2, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB), and one Shooter title Call of Duty: Warzone. League of Legends led the way with 11M hours watched – an unsurprisingly high viewership given that the grand final was held this week. It was a massive grand final for long-time League of Legends fans, with T1 (featuring Faker) taking down TES (Top Esports) for the $400K grand prize.
The Crown Prince’s favorite game, Call of Duty: Warzone, also wrapped up in the first week, albeit with less impressive viewership. The game generated only 964K hours watched – around 1/10th of the viewership of League of Legends and MLBB. On the bright side, Team Falcons made the host country proud as the Saudi-backed team took out the entire competition.
The EWC’s organizers have also made a strong showing of their support for mobile esports – a genre often neglected by other major esports tournaments, but which has seen major boosts in popularity recently. MLBB launched right off the bat with a number of rounds in the first week, and almost beat out League of Legends viewership even without a grand final. The prize pool of $3M is a sure sign of Saudi Arabia’s continued confidence in mobile esports.
The EWC is By Far the Most Watched Multi-Game Tournament of the Year
When it comes to multi-game esports tournaments, the EWC is unparalleled in terms of scope, financing, and performance. To begin with, the EWC has already outperformed the two major multi-game events of 2024 so far: Junichi Kato’s Hyper Game Tournament and The AT&T Annihilator Cup. Although the latter two competitions were just two day events, comparing the average viewership for each shows that they fell short of the EWC by at least 50%. The EWC is therefore unchallenged at this point.
In terms of sheer spectacle, the EWC has also dazzled viewers with pageantry involving fireworks, music shows and virtual spaces. The trophy system for competitors is one of the most satisfying reward systems of any tournament. Each team is given a triangular “key” marking their right to compete in the EWC. Anyone who loses has their key crushed, while the winners have their keys immortalized in the trophies for their respective games. Satisfyingly, the winners can also choose to have particular opponents’ keys encased into their own trophy. The EWC’s organizers understand well how the symbolism of this act drives hype and creates rivalries between teams.
This may sound like a small detail, but the amount of care put into these kinds of systems demonstrates a serious commitment on Saudi Arabia’s part to crafting a unique gaming event. Of course, that’s also backed up by a serious financial investment. Mohammed Bin Salman has announced a $38B investment in Saudi Arabia’s gaming industry, including plans to develop a world-first gaming district in Qiddiya City.
These kinds of commitments put the EWC out of reach of most esports tournaments. Instead, the event is competing with traditional sports: In a couple weeks’ time, the EWC will be competing with the Olympics for viewership. It will be interesting to see how viewership is affected by the Olympics, and whether esports can hold its ground thanks to gaming fans and the viewing interests of younger generations. Stream Hatchet will be watching this effect as the EWC features new titles including Counter-Strike 2 and Honor of Kings.
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