Most popular esports tournaments and broadcasters of August 2023

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August marks not only the end of Summer but also a busy season for esports as many disciplines see some of their biggest tournaments hosted. CS:GO, Valorant, League of Legends, and more all experienced huge viewership throughout last month and in this article we’ll break down the most popular esports events for August 2023. 

Most popular esports tournaments of August 2023

 Top esports events of August 2023, per Peak Viewers  

Across the global esports industry, MPL Indonesia Season 12 was the most popular esports event of August. MPL is an official professional league for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, a mobile MOBA game that is hugely popular in Asia. Mobile gaming is one of the quickest-growing parts of the esports industry and it continues to impress with huge viewership season after season. The world championship for ML:BB also is one of the only tournaments that can compete with the beloved Indonesian regional league.

Season 12 of MPL-ID reached 1.98M peak concurrent viewers during the match between Alter Ego and Rex Regum Qeon, which makes it not only the most popular event of August but also one of the most popular events of the year. MPL-ID Season 12 is still ongoing until mid-October, but the league has already improved compared to Season 11, which received 1.88M PV during the Playoffs stage.

A short way behind MPL Indonesia was the LCK Summer 2023. The Korean regional league for League of Legends is one of the most popular event series in esports, and the recent Summer 2023 season set new records for the region. With 1.52M PV, the event has continued to grow season after season. As we looked at in our recap article for the Summer split, the LCK Summer 2023 was not only the most popular LCK split ever but the most popular regional League of Legends league in the discipline’s history.

The LCK Regional Finals of this year were also one of the most popular tournaments in August, but with only 507K PV it was unable to stand up to the regular season. The event saw fan-favourite organisations like DRX, DPlus, and KT Rolster compete for spots at the 2023 World Championship. However, without viewership powerhouses, Gen.G Esports and T1, both of whom have already qualified, the regional finals struggled to garner viewership. 

Looking towards third and fourth place, Valorant Champions 2023 and IEM Cologne 2023 were two of the most popular events for August. Valorant Champions was largely more successful than the Cologne CS:GO event, but the Valorant event benefited from being the most prestigious and hyped-up event for the discipline this year. With 1.29M PV, the Valorant Champions 2023 event was unable to become more popular than the previous year’s champion event, but it still drew in a very sizable audience for its games.

Although IEM Cologne 2023 was much smaller than the Valorant Champions event, it was also not an official tournament for the discipline. IEM Cologne became the second-most popular tournament event of 2023, despite being hosted and organised by a third party. In fact, IEM Cologne was the only third-party event on this ranking. Although a majorly successful event, the 2023 iteration was unable to reach the heights of the previous year: when IEM Cologne 2022 reached 1.25M PV. 

These were the most popular events of August according to global viewership statistics, but esports can be a divisively regional game. To get a stronger look at some specifics of the esports industry we’ve also prepared data for English-speaking, Japanese-speaking, and Twitch-exclusive viewership.

Most popular esports tournaments of August 2023, English viewership only

Filtering out all viewership except for English-speaking audiences, mobile gaming giant MPL falls out of the picture but surprisingly the LCK Summer 2023 manages to hang on. MPL and the LCK are two leagues that are heavily supported by their regional viewership but LCK’s international reputation and prestige help it to draw in a more international English-speaking viewership. 

Valorant Champions 2023 moved to the top of the rankings for English viewership, with 690K English PV recorded during the event, more than half of the event’s total PV. Valorant is one of the rare Western shooter esports disciplines that maintains a large international audience in Asia, but the English viewership for the 5v5 shooter remains strong. As we looked at some of the most popular broadcasters for the event in a previous article, a large chunk of this PV figure was likely due to community casters, specifically tarik. 

In second place for English viewership was the IEM Cologne 2023 event, with 443K English PV. CS:GO receives higher viewership from the Eastern European regions compared to Valorant but the English viewership for the tournament is still high. As we looked at in the article for our PRO subscribers exploring how Valorant and CS:GO draw in viewership, CS:GO generally has a more solidified viewership on one singular main broadcast, which is usually English-based. This approach to main broadcasts helps boost English viewership for the discipline. 

Finally, two new additions round off the list, as EVO’s Street Fighter 6 event and the RLCS World Championship received 301K PV and 291K PV, respectively. The release of Street Fighter 6 is still giving massive boosts in viewership to the fighting game genre and EVO 2023 hit new peaks in terms of viewership with the help of the SF6 hype. Rocket League is also an esports discipline that’s experiencing growth at the moment, as the recent World Championship was the most popular event in the discipline’s history: besting last year’s World Championship by about 100K concurrent viewers at peak.

Street Fighter is experiencing all-new heights for itself, and the Japanese game also draws in large viewership from its home country. Japanese viewership is an interesting counterpart to the English-speaking regions as these audiences are largely separated from each other. Exclusively for our PRO subscribers, take a look at the most popular esports events of August for Japanese audiences.  

As expected, EVO’s Street Fighter event was one of the most popular esports events of August in terms of Japanese viewership, but what’s interesting here is the huge domination of one discipline in this ranking.

The top-ranked event of the month is one we’ve looked at already, but the most popular match of the event is different for these audiences. Japanese audiences supported a Japanese team through the event and over 198K concurrent fans tuned in to support their regional team. The other team in this match might have some Japanese fans themselves after one of their team members spoke Japanese to fans on stage at an event earlier this year. 

The fourth and fifth-ranked events are also interesting, as they are largely different to the events we’ve seen in the most popular events globally and for English-speaking audiences. Make sure to check out their events page and make use of our large database of viewership statistics if you want more information about the viewership for these events.

Highest Peak Viewers for esports channels in August 2023, Twitch only

Looking at the most popular channels for August, Valorant’s official broadcast reigned supreme for their coverage of the Grand Finals of the Valorant Champions event. Paper Rex against Evil Geniuses was a high for the event’s viewership and managed to give them the edge over tarik. The official broadcast exploded in popularity for the Grand Finals event, as all fans of the discipline tuned in to watch.

Tarik, although only ranked fourth per Peak Viewers, received more viewership on average throughout the event than the official broadcast. However, during the Grand Finals, he was unable to reach the heights the official broadcast did. Despite peaking at almost 100K fewer concurrent viewers than the official broadcast, tarik actually received more Average Viewers for his Grand Finals coverage than the official Twitch broadcast.

Making up second and fifth are eslcs and gaules on Twitch. Eslcs received 223.9K PV during the Grand Finals match of the IEM Cologne 2023 event and they were overall the most-watched broadcaster for the tournament. Compared to Valorant where tarik was the most-watched broadcaster for the major event, eslcs benefited from a lower amount of official broadcasts for the event compared to Valorant, which saw much more diluted viewership. 

Gaules reached 177K Peak Viewers during the NAVI vs FURIA Esports match at the Gamers8 CS:GO tournament. Gaules, although not an official broadcaster, fulfils the role of an official Portuguese-speaking broadcaster for many CS:GO events. At Gamers8, he was the most popular channel of the entire event as the Portuguese-speaking community came out in droves to support their regional team. Even at IEM Cologne 2023, gaules’ viewership was comparable with the official broadcasts for the event, despite not being officially partnered with the event organiser.

Finally, stuck in the middle is the official rocketleague Twitch account which received 217K PV during the Grand Finals of this year’s World Championship event. When it comes to Twitch viewership, we can see how platform choice affects esports’ popularity. Looking at the most popular broadcasters on Twitch, no one is covering the LCK or MPL-ID, but rather disciplines like Valorant, CS:GO, and Rocket League, which are much more popular within English-speaking spheres.

August was a strong month for esports viewership as various season-ending tournaments took place in discipline’s like Valorant and Rocket League. CS:GO events received solid viewership despite being third-party events, and Street Fighter 6 is setting viewership records to become one of the most popular fighting games in esports history. The MPL-ID Season 12 is still on-going and new heights of popularity will likely be reached as the league enters its Playoffs stage this October. Keep an eye out for the viewership of this event as it progresses with Esports Charts’ tournament page and updated data.