Gamers8 2023 Rocket League event becomes the most-watched non-RLCS event of the year

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As of the 27th of August, both the Gamers8 2023 Rocket League event and the Gamers8 2023 calendar of elite tournaments came to a close. This year was Gamers8’s biggest year in esports to date and their Rocket League event was no different. The event tripled in size compared to last year’s event of the same discipline.

Gamers8 hosted $45M USD worth of esports tournaments throughout the Summer and organised some of the biggest monetarily esports events in the industry for several disciplines. Rocket League is one of the view esports disciplines that Gamers8 also covered in their smaller calendar last year, and it's a good look for the organisers that one of their few return titles is performing strongly in terms of viewership.

Gamers8 2023 Rocket League Viewership Statistics

The Gamers8 Rocket League event was the second-largest event of 2023 in terms of prize pool. The event hosted in Riyadh features just $100K less than the RLCS 22-23 World Championship, which took place earlier this month. Not only high ranking in terms of prize pool, the event was also one of the most-watched Rocket League events of the year.

The Gamers8 event received 1.2M hours of watch time across a four-day span, making it the fourth-most-watched tournament in the discipline for 2023. The only events to receive more watch time than this event are the World Championship and the RLCS Spring and Winter Majors of this year. 

Gamers8 did lag behind these events, which achieved 9.5M Hours Watched at best (World Championship) and 3.59M Hours Watched at worst (Winter Split Major). However, this means Gamers8 was the most-watched unofficial Rocket League event of the year. Of the top ten most-watched Rocket League events of the year, Gamers8 2023 was the only non-RLCS tournament to make the cut.

The event received 83.8K Peak Viewers during the second day of Group Stages, with multiple matches being covered at the same time. Viewership reached a peak as Team Liquid, Karmine Corp, FURIA, and Team Secret all went live at the same time. Interestingly, with the peak concurrent viewers figure being reached during the Group Stages, Peak Viewers for the event was quite low. 

When ranking the events of 2023 by Peak Viewers, Gamers8 2023 ranks only barely within the top 15. The games featuring Rule One did receive solid viewership, but their Grand Finals match against Version1 failed to captivate a sizeable audience. 

Looking more closely at the most popular teams of the events with our PRO subscribers, we can draw some information from our data. The fifth-ranked team in our listings here is of particular interest. Such a large gap to the top-ranking teams gives a hint towards why the Playoffs struggled for viewership.

The third-ranking team in this graphic is proof of powerful community support from their specific region. In the next graphic exclusively for our PRO subscribers, we’ll see some of the top streamers of the event and how they supported their regional team. 

Finally, the top two teams in this ranking are proof of local support for esports teams, as they both hailed the Gamers8 2023 event as a home event. 

The most popular streamers of 2023 tie in very well to our graphic for the most popular teams of the event. Both by Peak Viewers and also by Hours Watched, European streamers were the most popular streamers of the event. Unsurprising who the third-most popular team of the event was, community support was high for local regions and live-streamers continued to support their favourite team. 

The Gamers8 official Twitch channel was also beaten out by a community caster, once again a symptom of low playoff viewership. Although the Rocket League event for 2023, it's hard to say if it achieved this on its own merit or due to the viewership coming in from community casters for the event.

To more concretely analyse the growth of the event in a better context, let’s compare the 2023 event to the Gamers8 Rocket League Tournament, the 2022 inauguration of Rocket League with Gamers8.

Gamers8 Rocket League 2022 and 2023 Event Comparison

Comparing this year’s Rocket League event by Gamers8 to the previous one, viewership grew in all metrics. Hours of watch time saw a 162% increase compared to last year, which is accompanied by a similar increase to the Peak Viewers figure. 

  Viewership statistics comparison of Gamers8 Rocket League 2023 and 2022  

Not only did the Gamers8 2023 event receive a higher peak concurrent viewers figure, but it also grew on average throughout the event as a whole. One disappointment for Gamers8 will be the lack of viewership towards the playoffs stage of the event, as the Grand finals weren’t as popular as they may have been with different teams. 

Interestingly, the most-watched match of the 2022 event was also not the Grand Finals match of the event. Team FURIA’s Semifinals against Team Falcons, a local Saudi Arabian team, was the most-watched match of the 2022 event. The Grand Finals between Guild Esports and Team FURIA was the second-most popular event of the earlier event, with 24.4K peak concurrent viewers recorded.

The number of community casters following the event also doubled from 2022 to the 2023 event. Gamers8 is slowly building a brand name in esports, and their second-ever Rocket League event received more community attention from streamers and casters as fans became more familiar with the event series.

Compared to Gamers8’s inaugural tournament, this year’s Rocket League event wasn’t the biggest Gamers8 event of the year, but it did grow in viewership and compete against the RLCS official tournaments. The first proper third-party event of the year, Gamers8 proves that there is room for events apart from the officially sanctioned RLCS tournaments. Esports Charts has collected all of the data required for Gmaers8, so keep an eye out for our official recap article for the entire event calendar.