Honor of Kings Invitational Series 2024: Istanbul showed the title’s best esports viewership prior to global release

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On March 10th, the Honor of Kings Invitational Series 2024: Istanbul came to an end, marking the inaugural international Honor of Kings tournament organized outside of Asia. The event garnered over 46K Peak Viewers across Western streaming platforms and within the in-game player, thus setting a new record for the title following its global release.

Honor of Kings Invitational Series 2024: Istanbul featured eight teams hailing from Turkey, Brazil, Kazakhstan, and various MENA countries: the ones that could try the game first during its Early Release stage. Among the participants were established and well-known esports organizations such as FUT Esports, Twisted Minds, Keyd Stars, and Beşiktaş Esports.

Keyd Stars and KIS 2024: Istanbul trophy / Photo: Playerbros

After the group stage, none of the participants left the tournament — this stage solely determined seeding for the playoffs. In the decisive match, the Brazilian teams Alpha7 Esports and Keyd Stars faced off; the latter emerged victorious with a score of 3:0, earning $100.000 and a slot in the Honor of Kings Invitational Series 2024: Season 2.

The matches of the Honor of Kings Invitational Series 2024: Istanbul generated 390K Hours Watched, with an average viewership of nearly 12K spectators. The most popular match turned out to be the grand final between Keyd Stars and Alpha7 Esports — simultaneously watched by over 46.7K viewers.

KIS 2024: Istanbul was covered across several dozen channels on platforms such as Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Kick, and TikTok, as well as within the in-game player of Honor of Kings. The largest audience coverage was observed in the official regional broadcasts in Chinese, Turkish, Portuguese, and Arabic.

Most popular tournaments of Honor of Kings on Western platforms

The Honor of Kings Invitational Series 2024: Istanbul emerged as the most popular tournament of the game outside of China. In terms of watch time, it surpassed the Honor of Kings Brazil Championship 2023 by 125%, and outperformed it by 250% in PV metric. Excluding statistics from Chinese streaming services, the peak online viewership of KIS 2024: Istanbul surpassed that of any other Honor of Kings tournament.

The next international tournament (Honor of Kings Invitational Series 2024: Season 2) for the game will take place in June. The winner of this event qualifies for the Honor of Kings Mid-Season Invitational 2024, with a prize pool of $3 million, scheduled to be held in Saudi Arabia in August.