Brawl Stars World Finals 2023 became the game’s most-watched event ever

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The Brawl Stars World Finals 2023 has come to an end with ZETA DIVISION emerging as the champion, winning its third straight title to cement its legacy in the sport. The tournament ended as one of the most successful in the series and now has the proud tag of being the most-watched one in the discipline’s history.

After three days of intense action, ZETA DIVISION defeated STMN Esports 3:1 in the Grand Final to become the world champion in its discipline. The winner took home $250K out of a total prize pool of $750K, while the runner-up became richer by $150K.

  Essential stats and most popular matches from the Brawl Stars World Finals 2023   

The Brawl Stars World Finals 2023 hit 273.1K Peak Viewers during the Playoffs Quarter-finals between Luminosity Gaming and ZETA DIVISION. Having seen its North American rivals come back from two nil down to draw the series at 2:2, the former somehow got its bearings together to edge this continental clash in the decider. It also did 3.1M Hours Watched and 164.2K Average Viewers over an airtime of 19 hours.

The tournament finalists were the only teams with multiple entries on the list of the most popular matches. More intriguingly, the summit clash between the two did not make this leaderboard, only coming in at the seventh spot. It seems the elimination of sought-after sides like Tribe Gaming, Crazy Raccoon, and SK Gaming saw a dip in interest among fans ahead of the main event, contributing to its lowly position.

This dip in audience attention for the Grand Final can also be connected to the most popular sides at this Brawl Stars event. It was topped by one of the most followed teams in this discipline, although the top five were separated by very fine margins, pointing to the more varied and diverse fanbase for the game across its global competitive sphere.

English and Twitch were the most preferred language and platform for fans to catch the action live. However, both saw drops in their watch time shares compared to last year's event, with the former seeing a more steep decrease thanks to the growth of other dialects like Japanese and Spanish. Of course, this improvement for the latter languages can be connected to sides in their regions doing much better and reaching the latter stages of 2023's iteration.

  There has been a steady positive progression in the series’ watch time   

This world championship-level event has become the most-watched competition in the series so far, doing 5.1% better than the next-best entry. The extended airtime obviously helped in its cause, with the change in format allowing more games to be held this time. It also finished as the second-most popular event, showing just how well Brawl Stars and its competitive scene have been growing over the past few years.

  Most viewed Brawl Stars tournaments of all time   

Further proof of this gradual increase in fame is the fact that the Brawl Stars World Finals 2023 has become the most-viewed competition in the discipline's long history. In fact, it beat the Brawl Stars World Finals 2022 to this mark, marking perhaps another turning point in its competitive journey and making clear that usual mobile esports favorites like PUBG Mobile, MLBB, and Arena of Valor must keep an eye out for it come the 2024 season.

One big factor for this success is the amount of viewership the event received on Twitch, which was in keeping with the general trend that Brawl Stars is one of the more popular mobile games on the purple platform compared to other titles in the segment. In fact, the world finals drew over 133K peak concurrent viewers on the title’s main Twitch channel, as many as the main BLAST channel achieved during the Grand Final of the Premier Fall Final 2023.

Brawl Stars also saw its most successful month of 2023 in November, that too with a few days still to go. It helped that many streamers took an interest in the biggest competition in its calendar, with many of them hitting personal channel landmarks as a result of covering it.

  Top ten most popular broadcasts of mobile games-related activities and events   

Speaking of content creators, many big names have been responsible for some of the most popular streams for mobile games on Twitch. Leading the charge is bakzera, whose Garena Free Fire broadcast involving fellow LOUD colleague Coringa hit 500K+ PV in February 2021. Other famous personalities in this list include NOBRU, auronplay, and ibai, with the latter not known for their tryst with titles on smartphones but whose popularity ensures they pull in large audiences whenever and whatever they stream.

As an extension of this ability to draw attention no matter the game they play when online. mobile esports publishers/organizers like Garena and Supercell have regularly worked with or collaborated with these prominent gaming content creators — especially from the Hispanic/LATAM and Portuguese communities. A good example of this is a title like Free Fire, which regularly gets healthy viewership boosts thanks to Brazilian audiences and its teams. As a result, it would not be a stretch to say that it is the most important region for the battle royale shooter and its esports scene.

Supercell isn't far behind, with the Brawl Stars World Finals 2023 consisting of streamers being allowed to co-stream the action and interact with their fans and audiences as a means to boost the rewards mechanism. Viewers were encouraged to watch and interact with the show live on the official broadcasting link, including giving match predictions, to earn their prizes and make their experience even more memorable.

There is a certain buzz around mobile games and esports at the end of this astonishing season, and with the success these tournaments have seen, there is no doubt that 2024 will only be bigger and better. With the likes of LoL: Wild Rift and Standoff 2 also growing their competitive scenes, what is in store for fans and pundits next year is quite an intriguing prospect.