The Esports World Cup 2025 saw a 51.3% increase in overall watch time, with over 183 million hours watched across 1,700 hours of broadcast content. Interestingly, three of the top five game titles by concurrent viewership peaks were held by mobile titles.
Esports streaming and data company Esports Charts produced a series of infographics highlighting the tournament’s growth across almost all titles, with Dota 2 being the one exception.
MLBB attracted over 3 million concurrent viewers at its peak. Image Credit: Esports Charts
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Towers Over the Rest
During the tournament, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) achieved a peak viewership of over 3 million, with fans watching more than 50 million hours of the Esports World Cup tournament.
It may come as a surprise to many, considering mobile games are often viewed with skepticism by many gamers worldwide.
MLBB is a MOBA developed by Moonton and was first released in 2016. Since then, the game’s popularity has increased significantly, with the title proving particularly popular in Southeast Asia.
The game has also seen its fair share of controversy, with Riot Games filing lawsuits against Moonton for copyright infringement in July 2017 and May 2022. The game was also temporarily banned in India, but that was soon reversed.
Mobile games also featured prominently in total hours watched. Image Credit: Esports Charts
Unsurprisingly, League of Legends, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike sat in the top five for most-watched games. Other mobile titles PUBG Mobile and Honor of Kings joined MLBB in the top five for peak viewership.
PUBG Mobile peaked at nearly 1.4 million concurrent viewers, putting it above League of Legends in the highest concurrent standings. It comfortably beat out renowned titles such as EWC Street Fighter and Call of Duty.
Games such as Teamfight Tactics, Fatal Fury, and Rennsport were amongst the least popular games at this year’s Esports World Cup.
Notably, Valve’s Dota 2 was the only returning game to show a year-over-year decrease in overall hours watched and peak concurrent viewership.
YouTube Viewership Grows Massively as Twitch Stagnates
In a subsequent post, Esports Charts shed light on where people were watching. The EWC was broadcast on 16 platforms, and Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok led the way.
YouTube and TikTok saw large percentage growth while Twitch stagnated. Image Credit: Esports Charts
YouTube grew to 75.40 million total hours watched, up 109.4% year-over-year. TikTok grew 80.1% to 25.57 million hours watched, with Twitch declining 0.6% to reach 48.54 million hours.