Fortnite x Esports World Cup 2024 reflects games' reliance on North American market

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The Fortnite x Esports World Cup 2024 was held over four days from August 8 to 11 at the Boulevard Riyadh City. Despite the substantial prize money on offer, it did not catch fire in terms of live viewership, only finishing as the game's ninth most-watched tournament this year so far.

There was also an unorthodox format adopted here, at least in terms of what is usually witnessed at Fortnite competitions. However, while that allowed for a more compact and precise Group Stage and Playoffs, it could not help attract more spectators, especially when compared to the highly popular Fortnite Championship Series competitions.

  XSET went unbeaten en route to winning the Fortnite Esports World Cup 2024 crown (Image via Esports World Cup | X)   

With fans getting to see more of their teams at FNCS events, the shorter format seen at the EWC 2024 seemed to appeal to fewer viewers. After all, each team could play a maximum of five matches, and while going unbeaten still meant something, it did not have the same impact as seeing the best players from each region in the Championship Series participate in almost two dozen games spread across Qualifiers, Semi-Finals, and Grand Finals stages.

This event had 16 esports organizations from across the globe battling for a purse of $1,050,000. These teams, including Karmine Corp, Gaimin Gladiators, ZETA DIVISION, BIG, and Fnatic, made it through various regional qualifiers and their placings in one major competition: DreamHack Dallas 2024.

  Fortnite x Esports World Cup 2024 – basic statistics and most popular matches   

American side XSET put in a dominant display to go unbeaten and clinch the trophy, 1000 Club Points, and earnings of $400,000. Across five matches, it dropped only three games — one in the Semifinals and two in the Grand Final — to emerge as the deserving champion.

Unfortunately, prominent names like ZETA DIVISION, Fnatic, and BIG combined to win just one match as they were all knocked out in the Group Stage. South American representatives w7m esports and DRAGONS eSports also failed to put up a fight, going out in the Group Stage after combining for a single match win.

The Fortnite x Esports World Cup 2024 reached 72.6K Peak Viewers during the summit clash between XSET and Exceed. This clash between two American orgs pitted two unbeaten sides against each other, with the latter crushing the hopes of popular French side Karmine Corp in the semifinals.

That three of the four North American rosters in this Fortnite competition reached the Playoffs reinforced the region's substantial influence on the game. This was also seen on the table of the most popular sides, and these sides' displays helped this event notch 799.2K Hours Watched and 25.5K Average Viewers over 31 hours of airtime.

  Fortnite x Esports World Cup 2024 – top channels   

Unsurprisingly, English was the preferred language here, taking up over two-thirds of the overall watch time. Portuguese fans, too, tuned in to see their side, w7m esports, battle it out thanks to Gaules covering the action, making it the third-most-popular language despite the teams' early elimination.

A point must also be made about the pulling power of Karmine Corp, owned by Kamet0, whose presence was enough to pull in a large number of viewers from its homeland, making it the only other language with a double-digit contribution to the total HW figures at the Fortnite x Esports World Cup 2024. Of course, the French Twitch megastar covering his side's matches played a big part, helping the tournament reach a broader audience than it would otherwise have.

2024 Most Watched Fortnite Tournaments Table

Coming to competition comparisons, this EWC 2024 offering was only the ninth-most watched Fortnite event this year. However, it was the most-watched non-FNCS tournament, although its peak concurrent viewership figures put it outside the top ten of that leaderboard. As mentioned above, the unorthodox format at the Esports World Cup 2024 did not seem to most fans’ liking, which played a part in the viewership not being as high as it could have been.

After all, most co-casters covered specific games, and if they had come together to live-stream all the games, the peak concurrent viewership figures could have been higher. The absence of Kamet0 and Gaules in the latter stages, especially, hurt what could have been a pretty solid event in terms of audience reach if more matches were held simultaneously instead of one after the other.

There are a lot more competitions to come at the Esports World Cup 2024, which will run until August 25. Some of the more renowned games to start are StarCraft II, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, EA Sports FC, PUBG: Battlegrounds, and Rocket League, and readers interested in getting a detailed look at statistics can opt for the Esports Charts events dashboard subscription.