How esports are being watched throughout the week?

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The esports industry is difficult to imagine without meticulous planning and timing, especially regarding tournament schedules. Modern esports scene follows a clear structure, with each discipline having its seasonal format, including major leagues, tournaments, and world championships planned out month by month. Precise planning assists teams in managing sponsorships, handling training schedules, and doing roster changes. Players, in turn, are aware of the season's schedule in advance, making it easier to organize vacations during breaks between tournaments.

Clear scheduling is also crucial for fans to know in advance which days of the week matches for a particular league take place. Naturally, peak viewership activity occurs on weekends when people are less distracted by work/school. Esports Charts analyzed esports statistics for 2022-2023 and calculated how busy esports are during weekends compared to other days.

The most active day of the week in esports is Sunday: it accounts for over 25% of the total average weekly watch time of esports. Additionally, around 24% of the total fall on Saturday. In other words, roughly half of the esports watch time is accumulated on weekends. The share of other days fluctuates from 6% to 16%, with values increasing closer to the weekend.

Interestingly, Monday slightly deviates from the overall trend and gathers slightly more watch time than Tuesday. This is due to the peculiarities of calculations, as we used the GMT time zone in our research. Mondays tend to attract some of the actual Sunday watch time, as some tournaments span across the week transition: when it's already Monday in Europe, Sunday is still ongoing in the United States.

The top 5 most watched esports titles throughout the week remain consistent: League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Dota 2, Valorant, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. League of Legends generates more watch time than other games almost every day, except on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when Riot Games' MOBA yields the lead to Counter-Strike. This indicates well-structured scheduling of regional League of Legends leagues, which occur on different days throughout the week, allowing game fans to watch esports matches regularly.

Additionally, Counter-Strike accumulates more watch time from Monday to Thursday, ranging from 17.3% to 22.4%. On weekends, its share becomes smaller and is between 10.6% to 13.1%: one of the reasons is that Counter-Strike is popular for its long-league format, often starting in the middle of the week. Another reason is that major tournament finals are usually held on weekends, resulting in higher competition from other games.

For most games, Saturdays and Sundays are the busiest days of the week, but there are some exceptions. For instance, Wednesday became the most active day for Rainbow Six Siege esports, as a lot of popular matches of international tournaments were scheduled on Wednesdays. Wednesday also became the most popular day for Call of Duty: Warzone as it frequently sees a lot of 3rd party streamer events during the working week.