Top 5 most watched eSports events of 2021
By: Silvester Johnson
Tags: Esport, Top 5, Lol, Csgo, Dota 2

In terms of viewership, 2021 marked the year of breaking new records and taking eSports games to new levels of popularity.

Whether it’s traditional games steadily developing a fanbase or mobile cybersport continuing its growth, this year many cybersport tournaments attracted more than 1 million viewers — 22 events. Looking ahead to the end of 2021, we take a look at the top 5 most watched cybersport events (excluding the Chinese audience).

Most viewed events of 2021

5th place — The International 10 and PGL Major Stockholm 2021 (2.74m)

5th place went to 2 tournaments at once, from Valve in different disciplines.

Dota 2 — The International 10. The event was Dota 2’s most successful eSports event in the game’s history. The peak audience was 2.74 million viewers, who spent more than 107 million hours watching the tournament broadcasts. If to analyse which teams were popular at TI10, Team Spirit proved to be the most watched (in terms of average viewership). The Russian eSports team was watched by an average of 805,216 viewers. It was followed by PSG.LGD (767,762), Team Secret (561,481) and OG (517,908).

CS:GO — PGL Major Stockholm 2021. The first Major in two years did not disappoint viewers, becoming the most-watched tournament in the discipline. The peak viewership was 2.74 million. After VALORANT entered the eSports scene, many began to wonder, “what will happen to CS:GO?” But the huge interest in the game, during the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 tells us that CS:GO will definitely succeed.

4th place — M3 World Championship (3.19m)

The huge rise in popularity of mobile and the incredible success of the M3 World Championship, brought the game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang a peak of 3.19 million viewers. Fans spent 62.61 million hours watching the tournament. This result proves, not for the first time, that in the near future, mobile eSports will be able to completely push out PC eSports in terms of viewership.

3rd place — PUBG Mobile Global Championship Season 0 (3.8m)

Although PUBG Mobile Global Championship Season 0 started in November 2020, it made the list thanks to the fact that it finished and peaked in January 2021, recording an impressive 3.8 million viewers.

The average viewership of the game was 528,000 in 122 hours of broadcast. In terms of peak viewership, the tournament performed best in the Indonesian (2.12 million), Arabic (494,393) and Russian (415,412) regions.

2nd place — League of Legends 2021 World Championship (4.01m)

The 2021 League of Legends World Championship saw an incredible peak audience of 4.01 million viewers (excluding the Chinese audience). It is by far the most-watched tournament and the first eSports tournament to draw more than 4 million viewers.

The tournament also holds the record for the most hours watched in the history of eSports tournaments (174.82 million).

1st place — Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore (5.41m)

The most watched cybersport event of 2021, is the Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore. The mobile game garnered 5.41 million viewers at its peak and 2.08 million viewers on average in its short broadcast time.

Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore is currently not only the most watched cybersport event of 2021 but also the most-watched ever.

It will be interesting to see if the mobile cybersport trend continues, or if PC games can compete for supremacy in 2022.