After a lengthy battle between the top 24 players of the world, the FC Pro 25 Open concluded in London, England, on February 2. The second edition of the circuit under the EA Sports FC banner saw a rise in prize pool to $532,000.
Unlike the FC Pro 24 Open, this year's roster featured four additional pros, bringing the total number of competitors to 24. There was also a tweak to the Playoffs, with 12 players from the Group Stage advancing to the knockouts instead of the eight we saw in the inaugural edition last year.
After two months of action, Danish sensation Anders "Vejrgang" Vejrgang went one better than the inaugural edition by beating Italy's Francesco "Obrun2002" Tagliafierro 5:4 in a pulsating Grand Final to emerge as the champion. The reigning world champion did not let it slip this time despite a back-and-forth battle that could have gone either way right until the end to prove that he might just be the early contender for the EA Sports FC G.O.A.T tag.
The success of European players, added to the Quarterfinals sojourn of Argentina's Gonzalo Nicolas "nicolas99fc" Villalba, helped the FC Pro 25 Open end among the game's most popular events. Its 273,651 Peak Viewers (PV) put it in the fourth spot, with the viewership remaining stable throughout the event.
The FC Pro 25 Open registered just over 4 million Hours Watched (HW) and 124,273 Average Viewers (AV) over 33 hours of airtime. As mentioned, the audience reach throughout this EA FC competition was stable throughout, with interest a little higher during the Group Stage as only the topper would get a bye in the first round of the Payoffs, unlike in 2024, when the top two made it to the Single Elimination knockouts.
The two editions of the FC Pro Open are atop the table of most-watched football simulation games from the FIFA/EA FC series, as per the Esports Charts database. The 2024 edition did see a fall in the watch time and PV figures for English, with audiences split between watching the action from this event and other esports tournaments happening simultaneously, like the MCS25 Playoffs, the ALGS: 2024 Championship, and the Call of Duty League 2025: Stage 1 Major.
With the relative success of the competition, it is safe to say that the introduction of the EA Sports FC franchise has seen an upturn in fortunes for the football simulation games genre. Many of the segment's most successful tournaments have come over the past two years, led by the success of popular players like Vejrgang.
The addition of Twitch Drops played the most pivotal part in reaching impressive viewership, as viewers with EA-linked Twitch or YouTube accounts are eligible to earn in-game rewards, including loan player items and packs. This feature is a proven means to increase the stats of esports events, so it makes sense that organizer Electronic Arts (EA) would continue leaning on it to grow its audience reach.
However, it seemed like the best reward was handed out for just catching the first 15 minutes of the FC Pro Open Finals: an FC Pro Live Xavi Simons Loan (for nine games). The subsequent prizes were mostly item packs that were not as attractive to viewers, which might have been why interest waned as this EA Sports FC competition reached its latter matches.
FC Pro events continue to find more interest among influencers, as seen in the fact that the number of channels livestreaming matches went up from 57 to 64 between the 2024 and 2025 editions. This included coverage from the participants themselves, with the likes of abumakkah joining popular EA FC streamers like Michael "auziomf" Faria in broadcasting the games.
With rival eFootball also putting in some solid viewership figures, it has been a great few months for football simulation fans. And there's still a lot of action to come in the FC Pro ecosystem, with the 2025 World Championship, consisting of a $1 million prize pool, set to be held later this year. Interested readers can track audience data and more for such important tournaments using the tournaments database.
