BlizzCon 19: WoW in the scope of esports

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We continue to review the results of BlizzCon esports events. This time we will talk about the results of World of Warcraft events that took place at this year’s convention and compare them with the previous seasons.

In total, two championships with a prize fund of 330 thousand dollars each are held at the Blizzard WoW exhibition. The first collects the best teams of the Arena. The second one holds a contest for the fastest PvE performance.

First, let's talk about the Arena World Championship 2019. This year's world championship has gathered 59 thousand peak viewers. This is 55% less than during the last season's tournament. Among the last four events, this result is the worst.

When it comes to the average viewers, the situation becomes better. This year's championship is still 28% behind its predecessor. However, it is ahead of the Arena World Championship of the 2017 and 2016 seasons.

It is worth adding that the airtime of these competitions has a big difference. This year the event took 11 hours of broadcast, but in 2018 the tournament went on for much longer – 26 hours. This is a consequence of the new format which allocates only a single day to the event.

At Mythic Dungeon International, the situation seems to repeat somehow. This year's dungeon-completion tournament is inferior to its counterparts in terms of peak viewers. This time, the difference from last season was 61%.

When it comes to the average number of viewers, the 2019 event loses to its predecessor, but leaves the 2017 season behind. The difference with Mythic Dungeon Invitational All-Stars 2018 is 55%. At the same time, growth compared to the year before last reaches a kind of success which is quite minuscule, being equal to only 4%.

It can be confidently declared that the guys from Method have scored a big victory. It became the champion of the Arena World Championship 2019. At the same time, two teams of this organization fought in the Mythic Dungeon International finals. This perfectly demonstrates how strong the Method guild is.

From this comparison it can be understood that the results of World of Warcraft display trends which are far from positive. In some places we are seeing growth, but it does not give us much hope, especially after the recent hype surrounding the classic version.