SEA dominance makes FIFAe World Cup 2024 year's most popular sports simulation event
The inaugural FIFAe World Cup featuring eFootball was held between December 9 and 12 at the Saudi Esports Federation Arena in Boulevard Riyadh City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Competitions were held in the console and mobile editions of the game, with the former event hitting a new peak concurrent viewership record for sports simulation games this year.
The console segment witnessed 18 nations compete in a 2v2 format at this highly-anticipated football simulation competition. Meanwhile, the mobile section was a battle between the 16 best nations globally represented by their top players in 1v1 action.
Both FIFAe World Cup tournaments awarded a total prize pool of $100,000 to their participants with the winner on both sides becoming richer by $20,000, while the runner-up pocketed $15,000.
In the first-ever FIFAe World Cup played in a mobile game, Malaysia's Muhaimin "Minbappe" Razak emerged victorious, outplaying Anass "AN10_Tienes" Moussa from Morocco in the final. Played on December 12, this contest was almost one-sided, with Minbappe's sound strategies ensuring his opponent could barely get a lick in over two games as he sealed a historic title for his country.
However, it was the console event that raised all the eyebrows when it came to audience reach.
FIFAe World Cup 2024 Console viewership statistics
This section of the series, featuring three competitions with three different titles (there was also a Rocket League competition), saw Indonesia create history. It became the first country to claim two titles in the same year following Rahmat "Miracle" Taufiq's victory at the FIFAe World Cup 2024 featuring Football Manager held in August and September.
The tournament hit 414,928 Peak Viewers (PV) towards the end of a tensely fought final, where Indonesia (Akbar "akbarpaudie" Paudie, Rizky "BINONGBOYS" Faidan, Elga "SHNKS-ELGA" Cahya) upset Brazil 2:0. The scoreline was much closer than what might come across to readers, with the losing finalist taking the lead in the first game before their opponent exploited defensive gaps to take a 2:1 win.
The second game followed a contrasting pattern, with Indonesia racing to a 2:0 lead before fending off a late surge from Brazil (Guilherme "GuiFera99" Fonseca, João "STS_Jvictor" Victor lopes, Thiago "ThiagoAvare10" Engel) to hold on and clinch the trophy. All this action also meant that this eFootball tournament notched 946,380 Hours Watched (HW) and 50,251 Average Viewers (AV) over 19 hours of airtime.
As mentioned, this competition ended as the top event for sports simulation esports games this year by peak concurrent viewership. Its nearly 415,000 PV was 30% higher than the next-best entry, the FC Pro 24 Open, which was a record event for the title, regarding watch time, at the time.
Interestingly, the event barely had a few thousand viewers over the first two days, but that number exploded in the last two days, led by Indonesian audiences. Indonesian saw a new audience record for non-mobile tournaments, reiterating its importance to the esports scene in Asia, and when the game and teams are right, the world.
Alongside Indonesian, the Portuguese and English audiences also came to the forefront at the FIFAe World Cup 2024 Console. These three languages combined to take up 98.35% of the overall watch time charts, with the top channels covering the event mostly being official handles.
It's been an interesting year for football simulation games, led by changes at the top in both the leading titles. However, one thing seems certain: the viewership has been rising, with tweaks to the overall calendars, including in the event structures, undoubtedly playing a big role in this growth.
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