FNCS 2025 - Major 2: Viewership wanes as series grapples with competition
We are more than halfway through Fortnite esports in 2025, with the latest events in the Fortnite Champion Series 2025 concluding in late April. A look at the livestreaming viewership indicates that the first set of Majors had higher audience engagement across metrics, although the difference in airtime was negligible. After all, events under Major 2 had to contend with a lot more competition from some of the top regional circuits in the world.
With two FNCS Majors done, 22 slots have been filled at the season-ending FNCS 2025 Global Championship, which will be hosted at the LDLC Arena in Lyon, France, in September. There are 11 remaining berths for teams to fight over in the coming months, meaning lots more action and entertainment for fans of the builder shooter.
Viewership dynamics of FNCS 2025 - Major 2
The FNCS 2025 - Major 2: Europe was the top event in terms of audience reach, hitting 362,370 Peak Viewers (PV) during the 12th and final game on Day 2 of the Major Finals. This was a fall of around 32% compared to Major 1, while its watch time fell by 127.79% despite the channel count rising by almost three times.
Why did the FNCS 2025 Major 2 viewership drop? What can explain it is the absence of star streamer Corentin "Gotaga" Houssein, who chose to cover the Rocket League matches of his team, Gentle Mates Alpine. Martin "mrsavage" Andersen, who also contributed massively to the numbers put up by the FNCS 2025 - Major 1: Europe, was far less active this time by airtime, which affected how many viewers tuned in to the action.
Nevertheless, this Fortnite competition finished among the FNCS' ten most popular events, with most of the non-global entries on this list coming from Europe.
Speaking of top events in the series by popularity, the FNCS 2025 - Major 2: NA Central - Grand Finals almost matched its European counterpart. It peaked at 349,045 concurrent viewers during the final round on Day 2, which was 27% higher than what we saw at Major 1.
Fans got to see the likes of Cody "Clix" Conrod and Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf in action, with the former sealing his place in the Global Championship after finishing second. Inaugural world champion Bugha, however, will have his work cut out to qualify for the season finale when Major 3 rolls around later this year.
Among the other regions, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East showed slight improvements in their PV numbers. The metrics for Brazil and North America West declined across the board, with the latter's decrease being especially steep as the number of channels covering the action fell by more than 100%.
When looking at the cumulative viewership numbers of both sets of events across the two Majors, the second one witnessed dips across the board. The fall in the FNCS 2025 Major 2 Peak Viewers was especially stark, as the absence of a star name like Gotaga was felt by European audiences. However, the difference in the viewer engagement, i.e., average viewership, across both Majors was only slight, showing that consistency among audiences could be retained under the right circumstances.
Also, a big reason for Major 1 tournaments attracting a higher audience reach is that the events in Major 2 had to compete with much larger and more prominent competitions from League of Legends, Valorant, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
Series like the LCK and the MPL are among the biggest regional circuits on the annual calendar, so competing with them is always going to be a challenge. Similarly, Valorant's season got going with its year-round circuit, the Valorant Champions Tour, while we also saw an important CS2 event like the IEM Melbourne 2025 run simultaneously.
With so much happening around the globe, the attention of audiences was bound to be split between games and competitions, which played a part in the sliding viewership dynamics for FNCS' Major 2.
To conclude, the European leg of the FNCS remained the top region on Fortnite's calendar, with its two Majors taking pride of place as the game's most popular events in 2025. The North America Central region has also seen a rise in its viewership, fueled by the increased number of slots for the Global Championship available to the winners.
The third and final FNCS Major is scheduled for July, with the remaining 11 slots at the Global Championship up for grabs. In the meantime, there will be other competitions for fans to enjoy, so ensure to keep an eye on the matches and track the game's viewership stats on Esports Charts.
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