The start of 2024 has been pretty good for Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), with one of its tournaments hitting a decent peak viewership high. The ongoing ESL Snapdragon Pro Series: BGMI notched 61K Peak Viewers during Round 2 of Week 1, Day 1, helping it become the fourth-most-popular one in the series.
The Snapdragon Pro Series is one of the largest and most diverse ones out there, encompassing 11 mobile-based disciplines, including New State Mobile and Brawl Stars. This is a pretty high figure for the Indian market, and considering it has become the most popular non-MLBB event in the series, that is quite the feat.
In fact, the top five matches by this metric are good enough to beat the previous record not involving MLBB, pointing to a renewed interest among audiences for the Indian version of PUBG Mobile. It also bodes well for the new season, the first full one for BGMI since its comeback from a government-imposed ban in mid-2022.
The Indian esports market is mostly inundated by mobile games, reflecting the ease of access to these devices compared to consoles or PCs in this part of the world. That is why titles like Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, COD Mobile, and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) are highly popular and throw out the best viewership statistics.
However, this love for smartphone-based competitive play has not really translated into major audience numbers as seen in a discipline like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. This Montoon MOBA is rooted in the SEA psyche and remains one of the most popular esports titles globally, as seen from its record-extending M5 World Championship.
That could change if the momentum captured at the ESL Snapdragon Pro Series: BGMI continues across the new year. What has helped get fans behind the game is its banning (barely over a year after it was released) and unbanning after a ten-month battle, with followers of the genre having no means of playing it in that period.
More importantly, the esports scene took a hit, with fans now stripped off watching their favorite teams and players duke it out locally and internationally. As one of the largest markets for the game, there were repercussions across disciplines, with Indian PUBG Mobile sides anyway unable to compete and BGMI now facing uncertainty.
However, the local edition's return last year seems to have reignited sparks within pro gamers and fans, with the average viewership numbers for events held since being higher than before. The ESL Snapdragon Pro Series: BGMI is another beneficiary of this trend and has gotten the new year off to a great start.
The organizers will hope viewers continue to watch the action in droves till February 18, when the winner will be decided. For now, they can take a lot of positives from overtaking the likes of Free Fire, Brawl Stars, and PUBG Mobile in terms of peak viewership numbers for a BGMI tournament.
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