MC Championship — the Minecraft scene is alive and thriving

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MC Championship (MCC) is a free-to-enter Minecraft tournament series with no prize money held monthly by the Noxcrew. It’s also one of the only two Minecraft competitions that are hosted regularly, with the other one being Twitch Rivals. According to MCC organizers, the competition is run “for fun, for the love of the Minecraft community and making great things”. 

An MCC tournament typically features ten teams of four, mostly Minecraft-focused creators battling in a variety of custom-built mini-games that aim to test some of the core Minecraft skills, including parkour, survival, combat and teamwork. After eight games are played, the top two teams go head to head in a final matchup to decide the ultimate champion.

The series was launched by the end of 2019 after Keemstar's infamous Minecraft Monday event was discontinued. Since then, 22 editions were held, with the series drawing significant viewership numbers. 

MCC viewership overview  

Although the MC Championship started gaining popularity right from the beginning, it surpassed the mark of 1 million Hours Watched for the first time during its MCC #9 edition which took place in September 2020. Despite the rising numbers, the organizers decided to take a break at the start of 2021 in order to improve the MCC experience, fix bugs and implement new game modes. 

The MCC #14 returned in May more successful than ever and with the mark of 2.32M Hours Watched and 822.8K Peak Viewers broke its own viewership record at the time for both metrics. Both of these records were surpassed during the following regular edition, but the MCC #14 remained the second best-performing event of the series to date. 

The series saw the highest viewership during the MCC #15 when 862.9M concurrent viewers tuned in to spectate the competition. Broadcasted across 48 Twitch channels, the event generated 2.74M Hours Watched. The following MCC #16 edition rounds up the Top 3 MCC tournaments with 2.23M Hours Watched and 791.6K Peak Viewers. 

Having accumulated 1.57M Hours Watched and 526.5 Peak Viewers, the most recent holiday-themed MCC #19 edition from December 2021 ended up being the sixth best-performing event of the series. Compared to the start of the 2021 season, the MCC’s viewership went down by 32.6%. 

Some of the notable streamers who participated in the competition are TommyInnit, Smajor1995, RanbooLive and FalseSymmetry. The victorious Team Teal Turkeys consisted of Sneegsnag, Sapnap, TommyInnit and Philza.

Is MCC more popular than Twitch Rivals? 

Compared to the Twitch Rivals, the second one of the two regularly running Minecraft competitions, the MCC was notably ahead in terms of viewership until the recent Twitch Rivals Squidcraft Games ft. Komanche took place. 

The special event was held in a custom mode inspired by the popular TV series "The Squid Game". Thanks to its unusual format and the high attendance of well-known streamers, the event broke its own viewership record and with 17.75M Hours Watched and 2.25M Peak Viewers became the most popular event in the Twitch Rivals series. On average, 1M spectators tuned in, which is 33.6% more than the AV mark of the best performing MCC tournament. 

The viewership of the rest of the Twitch Rivals Minecraft tournaments is comparable with MCC’s numbers from the second half of 2020. The second best-performing Twitch Rivals Minecraft competition (by HW) was the Twitch Rivals Minecraft Bingo Challenge, which garnered 1.4M Hours Watched and attracted 337K Peak Viewers. However, the average viewership was significantly lower than MCC events — 149.2K AV. 

Despite its respectable age, Minecraft seems to be one of the games that survive decades thanks to the passion and dedication of their communities and the MC Championship is proof of that. The game is still quite huge on both YouTube and Twitch, which is why MCC attracts so many viewers. Moreover, the participation of popular creators in the event is another factor responsible for drawing attention. 

Although the date of the next MCC event hasn’t yet been confirmed, the series is set to return in 2022. Will MCC’s popularity grow further or was the 2021 season the peak of the series? Follow our social networks and don’t miss out on any updates!