The MLBB Mid Season Cup 2025 reached over 50,000,000 hours of watch time, a 73% increase over last year’s EWC event

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At the recent MLBB Mid Season Cup 2025, the quarterfinal match between RRQ Hoshi and Selangor Red Giants OG Esports reached a new peak viewership record for the Esports World Cup. Now that the event is fully behind us, Esports Charts takes a look at the final viewership results for the record-breaking tournament. 

The opening Wildcard Stage of the Mid Season Cup 2025 received rather low viewership — as was true last year, too — failing to crest the 200,000 concurrent viewers mark at any point. However, once the Group Stage began and the top global teams took to the stage, viewership rocketed upwards, with a handful of matches reaching over 1,000,000 Peak Viewers (PV). 

The lengthy tournament, which lasted more than 3 weeks, accumulated sizable viewership throughout the Group and Knockout stages, leading to over 50,000,000 Hours Watched (HW) in total. For comparison, the only other MLBB tournaments to ever reach this mark are either the MPL seasons with hundreds of hours of broadcasting time, or the various world championship events organized by MOONTON Games. 

Last year, the Selangor Red Giants OG Esports were the ultimate victors of the EWC Mid Season Cup event. The reigning champions clashed with fan-favorite Indonesian squad RRQ Hoshi in the quarterfinals, with the passionate audiences of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines all contributing significantly to the total 3,067,670 PV.

The results of the MLBB MSC 2025 show significant growth compared to last year’s event at the Esports World Cup. Not only did peak viewership increase, but Average Viewers increased by almost 50% compared to last year. Throughout this year’s Mid Season Cup, viewership increased year-on-year, highlighting the growing popularity of the mobile gaming title and the still-relatively-new Esports World Cup circuit.

The growth of TikTok Live was a significant factor behind the viewership this year, increasing its watch time during the event by almost 100% compared to the MSC 2024, and it’s proportional share of overall watch time grew too. On top of this large platform growth, Arabic audiences also reached a new peak viewership record for MLBB, settling in at 27,132 PV for the home turf event. 

At last year’s MSC, neither RRQ.H nor ONIC managed to qualify for the event, leading to poor engagement among Indonesian audiences. With both of these teams competing, and showing good form, at the recent MSC 2025, the Indonesian Peak increased by over 1,135,000 concurrent viewers compared to last year. Slightly under two million is by no means the full potential of Indonesian audiences for MLBB; at the recent MPL Indonesia Season 15, the Indonesian peak for the finals reached over 3,774,000 PV.

Comparing the most popular matches of the tournament, the raw popularity of RRQ.H is immediately clear to see. Other playoffs matches featuring ONIC (both their Indonesian and Filipino squads) and reigning champions SRG.OG were highly popular, but Team Liquid PH were ultimately the victors of the event. 

Team Liquid PH’s grand finals game against SRG.OG was not as popular as their previous matches, reaching only 2,270,798 PV and falling just outside the top three matches. This was due to a lack of representation for Indonesian fans in the final — while Malaysia and the Philippines are powerful audiences for MLBB, Indonesia is the crown jewel of the esports audience. Although Indonesian viewership was low for the finals compared to other matches, it remained the most popular language of the grand final.

  Peak viewership of the MLBB Mid Season Cup tournaments, 2021-2025   

While the recent Esports World Cup tournament was highly popular and showed strong growth compared to last year, it still fell short of the MSC series record, held by the MLBB Southeast Asia Cup 2023. The event hosted a legendary showdown between ONIC and Blacklist International, which was followed by millions of Indonesian fans, as well as the other audiences which tuned in.

The MLBB Mid Season Cup 2025 not only set a new record for the Esports World Cup series, but the exciting mobile gaming esports tournament was one of the most-watched events in MLBB history. Looking to the future, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang could be the new face of the EWC; while it boasted one of the largest prize pools this year, it could see special treatment in the future as the largest single attraction of the summer festival.