The most popular competitive sports video games in 2022

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Viewers watched sports video game tournaments quite actively on streaming services in 2022. Both simulators of classic sports and games that slightly stepped out of the genre enjoyed popularity. In our new Esports Charts article, we will tell you which sports video games attracted the largest audience in 2022 and thanks to what championships they managed to do this.

#5 — FIFA Online

FIFA Online, developed by Electronic Arts and Neowiz, tops the list of Top 5 sports video games of 2022. It is free and targeted primarily at the Asian market.

31st Southeast Asian Games FIFA Online became the most successful tournament of the year in the discipline. The championship saw 77.1K Peak Viewers, which has become the third-best result in the history of FIFA Online tournaments. It should be noted that the event became the sixth most popular among the tournaments that took place as part of 31st SEA Games.

#4 — Formula 1

The car racing simulator F1, published by Codemasters, takes fourth place in the ranking. By the end of 2022, the series of games based on Formula 1 championships includes 15 titles, the most recent of which is F1 2022.

Twitch Rivals F1 2021 tvandeR Invitational became the most popular esports tournament of the year in F1, reaching 90.8K Peak Viewers. This result has become the 13th in the history of the discipline. Popular Hispanic streamers took part in the event, including TheGrefg, MYM_ALKAPONE and tvandeR. The latter was the host of the tournament, while David ‘elreyguiri_f1’ Castilla, a lesser known streamer, became the champion.

#3 — FIFA

FIFA rounds out the Top 3 of the most popular sports video games of 2022. This football simulator game has been produced by Electronic Arts since 1993 with the latest game in the series being FIFA 23, which was released this autumn.

FIFA eWorld Cup 2022, organized by EA Sports together with FIFA, was the most successful FIFA tournament of the year. The Grand Final of the championship between the German streamer Umut and the Argentinean streamer nicolas99fc was watched by almost 149.5K Peak Viewers. The event has ranked among the Top 9 disciplines by this metric, but remained outside the Top 40 by Average Viewers.

#2 — TrackMania

TrackMania, Ubisoft Nadeo's series of arcade racing simulators, ranks second in the ranking. This game differs from the usual races by letting you compete on user-created tracks with many ramps and dead loops. The first installment of TrackMania was released in 2003, and the latest one — in 2020. The free distribution format has played an important role in the enormous popularity of the series.

ZrT Trackmania Cup 2022, organized by the French streamer ZeratoR, attracted almost 185.5K Peak Viewers at one of the semifinal races, and has become the most popular tournament in the history of the discipline. Besides, the event had 134K Average Viewers, and the number of Hours Watched reached the mark of 870.5K — a new TrackMania record as well. We should note that the final part of the competition was held on June 4, 2022 in Paris at the Bercy Accor Arena with an audience of 15K people.

#1 — Rocket League

Rocket League became the most popular sports video game of the year — a unique hybrid of arcade racing and football. It provides gamers with a variety of modes, the possibility to customize cars, and it became a free-to-play game in September 2020. Combined with the full-fledged esports league, it's not surprising that Rocket League tournaments attract hundreds of thousands of viewers.

RLCS 2021-22 - World Championship held in August has become the most popular tournament in Rocket League history. It reached 368.7K Peak Viewers at the quarterfinal between the Brazilian FURIA and Moist Esports, owned by the popular streamer moistcr1tikal. The championship also has become the leader of the discipline by other metrics, amassing almost 10.2 million Hours Watched and attracting 154.3K Average Viewers.

Besides the games in the Top 5 of the year, video game simulators of major sports franchises, such as Madden NFL, NBA 2K and NHL, are hugely popular. Moreover, esports championships in them are often supported by real sports leagues. Viewers are also interested in various car racing simulators, including Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo, tournaments in which are sponsored by major car brands.