Female Esports 2024 Report — Valorant & MLBB make up almost 90% of all viewership as prize pools verge on $3,000,000

Loading

In 2024, women’s esports shifted in the industry; this year was complex for the scene, with various metrics both rising and falling. Valorant and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang continued their dominance in this side of esports, largely thanks to their official developer-backed leagues, which offer premiere opportunities for women and marginalised genders. 

The female side of the esports industry exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 lockdowns, which also coincided with some popular esports titles developing and enhancing opportunities for female professionals. In 2020, MLBB developers Moonton began hosting various women’s events for their mobile gaming MOBA title, and in the following year, Valorant developers Riot Games established the VCT Game Changers league.

Year-on-year viewership statistics clearly show the explosion of popularity for female events beginning in 2021. While 2024 does mark a distinct drop in total watch time, this was exacerbated by a drop in events held this year: watch time may have fallen by about 25% in 2024, but there were also 20% less tournaments held. Despite this, prize pools for the female esports industry continued to grow. 

Total yearly watch time for female esports since 2018

Although some viewership metrics like Average Viewers showed slight decreases compared to last year, the growth of female esports since its inception is undeniable. As of 2024, the year’s total prize pools for female esports stands just below $3,000,000. Compared to 2018 when female esports could not offer $100,000 in prizes, the industry has changed almost beyond recognition. 

In 2024, Valorant’s VCT 2024: Game Changers Championship was the most popular female tournament of the year. The league for women and other marginalised genders received over 464,500 peak concurrent viewers for its Grand Finals, which saw Shopify Rebellion claim their second Game Changers world title without losing a single map. 

Following the event, Ava “Florescent” Eugene made headline news by signing with VCT Ascension EMEA 2024 winners Apeks. Florescent is the first player to make the jump from Game Changers to the Valorant Champions Tour, which not only highlights her own firepower and professional success, but also how Valorant has developed a world-leading female esports circuit for its 5v5 shooter. 

Female esports viewership in 2024 insights & statistics

For female esports this year, Valorant and MLBB maintained their spots as the top games, with a significant gap separating these titles from other top games like Counter-Strike 2 and League of Legends. Valorant and MLBB were also the only games in 2024 to host tournaments with a prize pool of $500,000: the GC championship and female Esports World Cup event for the mobile gaming title. 

Counter-Strike also contributed significantly towards the total prize pool of the year, with the title offering almost 10x more in prize pools than League of Legends. Although Counter-Strike offered well over $500,000 in prizes throughout the year for female events, the viewership of these events were not much stronger than female League of Legends tournaments, which offered much smaller prize pools. 

While Shopify Rebellion were clearly the most dominant force at the Game Changers Championship this year, other Valorant teams like G2 Gozen and MIBR GC actually received more viewership than the championship squad. Further down in this article, we will also dive deeper into the top teams, games, and the distribution of viewership for female esports in 2024.

Throughout 2024, Valorant was accountable for a majority of the total 21.65M hours of watch time achieved by the female esports industry. While the Game Changers Championship was highly successful, female esports in Valorant saw a decrease in total viewership compared to last year. The regional events earlier in the year received far less viewership than last year, due to less interest from community casters in covering the mid-season tournaments. 

MLBBs position as a top competitor alongside Valorant faltered slightly this year; the mobile gaming MOBA title enjoyed hosting the 32nd SEA Games - Women’s Tournament in 2023, which was accountable for 70% of MLBBs total female esports viewership that year and reached 1.37M Peak Viewers, the current record for a peak viewership at a female esports event. 

The SEA Games are a biannual occurrence, so MLBB will have to wait until 2025 to try and best the series’ record-breaking viewership. Nevertheless, the esports title made a strong effort at replacing the SEA Games this year: events in collaboration with the Saudi Arabian Esports World Cup reached millions of hours watch time. The EWC x MLBB Women’s Invitational 2024 was the most-watched female MLBB event of the year, having accumulated 2.55M Hours Watched.

Counter-Strike, League of Legends, and Fortnite were the next most-watched titles of the industry. As we mentioned above, Counter-Strike offers far more in prize pools than LoL, largely through the game’s long-standing ESL Impact League series. Despite Counter-Strike’s larger prize pools, its viewership did not see a proportionally comparable increase. League of Legends’ most-watched female event of the year, the Ignis Cup Split 1 2024, offered only $15,629 in prizes for its Brazilian competitors.

Most-watched female esports teams of 2024

Valorant squads dominated our ranking as the most-watched female esports teams of the year. Despite Shopify Rebellion (SR) clearly being the most dominant GC team of the year, MIBR GC and G2 Gozen were able to outperform SR in terms of total watch time. This was partially due to the Brazilian and EMEA leagues receiving more watch time than the North American circuit where SR plays, but SR’s dominance at the GC Championship this year was a double-edged sword

Due to SR’s dominance and swift dispatches of their opponents at the GC Championship this year, they were on-air for the least amount of time of the top four teams from the event. MIBR GC were on-air for 35% longer than SR, allowing them to accumulate far more watch time throughout the tournament: MIBR GC received almost 900,000 more hours of watch time than SR at the championship. 

When it comes to MLBB, Team Vitality Female and Indonesia Female were the most-watched teams of the year. It’s slightly disingenuous to call these two separate teams, as they featured the exact same players on each squad. The Indonesian squad is a dominant force in female MLBB esports, having claimed the EWC x MLBB women’s Invitational 2024 title under Team Vitality, and the Asian Esports Games 2024 and IESF World Esports Championship 2024 - Women titles under their national flag. 

Both Team Vitality Female and Falcons Vega enjoyed serious boosts to their total watch time by competing in the MDL Indonesia Season 10 alongside male competitors. While neither team qualified for the event’s playoffs, their entrance to the official tier-two Indonesian scene alongside male competitors is a serious step forward. It is no coincidence that Valorant and MLBB, the two games with a comprehensive season of events for female professionals, are the two games that have begun bridging the gap between female esports teams and top-tier events. 

TSM Phoenix was the only team from Apex Legends to make our ranking with 1.09M Hours Watched. The team was invited to compete at the ALGS: 2024 Split 1 Pro League - EMEA, where they accumulated a majority of their watch time. Important to note, as battle royale games see tens of teams competing simultaneously, viewership data for teams reflect the total viewership of the match and is not as exact on a team-by-team basis compared to disciplines like Counter-Strike and Valorant. 

Female esports 2024 prize pool & viewership distribution

In terms of the almost $3,000,000 in prizes given out for female esports events this year, about 73% of this total was given out at Offline events, despite this category only making up about a fourth of total tournaments. The distribution of prize pool between Online and Offline events was almost exactly the same as the distribution of watch time between the two kinds of events: higher stakes events with higher prize pools are generally more likely to attract a larger audience.

Esports Charts was able to calculate a dollar price per hour of watch time for both kinds of events by combining our viewership data with event statistics. Despite Offline events making up almost two-thirds of the total watch time of female esports this year, they gave out $0.6 more in prize pool for each hour of watch time. While Online events were less watched, the tournaments were also more economical for organisers. 

For the distribution of watch time across languages and platforms, statistics remained largely the same compared to last year. English, Indonesian, and Portuguese remain the top three languages for female esports viewership; English overtook Indonesian in 2023, and the lingua franca cemented its place at the top of the female esports industry this year. 

Twitch remained the most popular livestreaming platform for female esports viewers, with its proportion of total viewership remaining static compared to last year. YouTube is still the second-most-popular option, but its share of the industry’s watch time fell by roughly 6%. This was largely due to the rapid growth of TikTok as an esports broadcasting platform in 2024. 

Throughout this year, TikTok event streams began accumulating more and more viewers, especially for mobile gaming esports. TikTok was the only platform among the top three to increase its watch time compared to last year, and it emerged as a major competitor to YouTube for mobile gaming audiences, leading to noticeable drops in viewership for YouTube-based event broadcasts in many games. 

While 2024 did not see female esports continue its year-on-year growth in watch time since 2018, this side of the esports industry continued to grow in other areas. Prize pools are continuously rising for female events, and 2024 saw both the first VCT GC player to move to the VCT and the first female teams competing in the MDL Indonesia. Esports Charts will track viewership data for female esports events throughout next year, and keep an eye on which games could potentially rival Valorant and MLBB.