A decade of growth: How esports viewership evolved beyond the big stage
MANILA, Philippines — Esports viewership has come a long way from being centered on a handful of major tournaments.
According to analytics platform Esports Charts, the industry has transformed over the past decade into a year-round viewing ecosystem spanning multiple platforms, languages, and game titles. Founded during the 2016 League of Legends World Championship, the company has tracked that evolution firsthand.
The growth has been reflected in the numbers. Global audiences generated a record 3.2 billion hours watched in 2025, excluding mainland China, while the 2024 League of Legends World Championship final between T1 and Bilibili Gaming drew a record 6.94 million peak viewers — the highest ever in esports history.
"From day one, our mission has been to bring transparency and trust to esports viewership data — replacing inflated claims and guesswork with reliable, independently measured statistics. Ten years later, Esports Charts covers more than 90,000 tournaments and events across over 160 games. Along the way, our data has helped us recognize major shifts early: we took mobile esports seriously long before it began breaking viewership records, and we started tracking Kick almost as soon as it launched. But spotting trends was never the goal on its own. What makes me proudest is seeing publishers, organizers, teams, and brands use our data to make better decisions and help the industry grow," said Ihor Kryvych, co-founder and CTO of Esports Charts.
Among the biggest changes identified by the company is the rise of co-streaming and community broadcasts, which accounted for 46.7% of watch time across major esports titles during the first half of 2026. What began as grassroots coverage has become one of the industry's primary distribution channels.
Regional-language broadcasts have also grown in importance. While English long dominated international esports coverage, Esports Charts noted that Asian-language streams collectively generated a larger share of global esports watch time than English-language broadcasts during the first half of 2026.
Mobile esports, meanwhile, has become one of the industry's largest drivers of viewership growth.
After Free Fire set a then-record audience of 5.4 million peak viewers in 2021, mobile esports continued its ascent. By 2025, mobile titles accounted for more than a quarter of all esports watch time worldwide, while the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang M7 World Championship set a new mobile esports record with 5.68 million peak viewers earlier this year.
The viewing landscape has also expanded beyond Twitch and YouTube. Platforms such as TikTok and Kick have emerged as major players, particularly in mobile esports, while regional leagues have become global attractions in their own right.
South Korea's League of Legends Champions Korea was the most-watched esports competition of 2025 by hours watched, while Indonesia's Mobile Legends Professional League continued to post some of the highest viewership figures in the industry.
Esports Charts also pointed to the growing influence of teams as audience drivers. Matches featuring organizations such as T1 and RRQ Hoshi now attract massive audiences regardless of tournament stakes, reflecting increasingly loyal fan bases across esports.
With more than 3,200 tournaments tracked in 2025 alone, esports has also evolved into an always-on entertainment product, supplemented by creator-led events and community competitions alongside traditional professional circuits.
"Looking back at these ten years, what strikes me most is how our role has changed. We went from a website fans checked after a big final to a strategic partner that organizers, publishers, teams and brands rely on: to plan events, to prove their value to sponsors, and to decide where to invest next. Along the way, viewership data has become something of a common currency for the market, and we are grateful to have played a part in that. In the next decade, audiences will spread across even more platforms, creators and languages, and the need for reliable data will only grow. That is exactly where we want to be: next to our partners, helping esports grow with data it can trust," said Artyom Odintsov, co-founder and CEO of Esports Charts.
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