Most popular tournaments in May 2022

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There were many major world championships in May, starting from CS:GO and Dota 2 Majors to 31st SEA Games, which featured 10 esports disciplines at once. In a new article, Esports Charts tells you which tournament outpaced MSI 2022 by Peak Viewers, and which event was the most popular among both English- and Portuguese-speaking viewers.

The most popular tournament in May is 31st Southeast Asian Games ML:BB, which was attended by teams from seven Southeast Asian countries. During the Grand final between the Philippines and Indonesia, the event attracted more than 2.2 million Peak Viewers. It should be noted that the ML:BB tournaments have been topping the ranking for the fourth month in a row.

The second most popular tournament in May is MSI 2022, which attracted almost 2.2 million Peak Viewers during the Grand final between T1 and Royal Never Give Up. We should say that this number has become the record for the series. You can read about other viewership records of the tournament in our article.

PGL Major Antwerp 2022 rounds out the Top-3 tournaments of the month. Its final between FaZe Clan and NAVI was watched by slightly more than 2.1 million Peak Viewers. This number is not the highest for the discipline, but many language records were updated during the Major.

Free Fire and PUBG Mobile tournaments also made it into the Top-5. Free Fire World Series 2022 Sentosa reached 1.47 million Peak Viewers at the first stage of the final day, and 31st Southeast Asian Games PUBG Mobile drew 903K Peak Viewers at the event's final stage. It is worth mentioning that the previous event of FFWS still holds the title of the most popular tournament in all of esports, and FFWS 2022 Sentosa was far less successful. You can read about the reasons for this here.

The most popular tournament in May with the English-speaking audience is the CS:GO Major. Its English broadcasts of the finals attracted more than 1 million Peak Viewers. The MSI 2022 finals' English-speaking Peak Viewers number is 45% lower, but at the same time, it has become the highest in the history of Mid-Season Invitational tournaments.

The third most popular tournament in the English segment is 31st Southeast Asian Games ML:BB. It reached 390.3K PV at the semi-finals between Indonesia and Malaysia. It is worth mentioning that one of the biggest events was broadcasted in English and Tagalog simultaneously. The commentators periodically switched from one language to another, and during the interviews the broadcast had English subtitles.

The first Apex Legends LAN tournament in a long time — ALGS: 2022 Split 2 Playoffs — drew over 327.6K English-speaking Peak Viewers at the final stage and ranked fourth. You can read more about the results of the event in our review.

ESL One Stockholm Major 2022 closes the Top-5 tournaments of May in the English segment. The English-language broadcast of the final between TSM FTX and OG drew more than 277K Peak Viewers. Read more about the statistics of the Majors and the contribution of the community-casters in our article.

CS:GO is wildly popular in Brazil, and that's why the Top-5 Portuguese tournaments includes three tournaments in the discipline, with the highest viewership at each of them being reached by Gaules. The most popular event of the language segment is PGL Major Antwerp 2022: it had 734.8K PV at the Cloud9 vs. Imperial Esports match.

Second most popular event is Free Fire World Series 2022 Sentosa, with the third stage of its finals drawing 284.8K Portuguese-speaking Peak Viewers. Third place goes to IEM Dallas 2022 with 254.3K Peak Viewers at the Group B opener between Brazilian teams FURIA and Imperial.

Fourth place is taken by MSI 2022. Portuguese broadcasts drew 153.8K PV at the İstanbul Wildcats vs. RED Canids match in the group stage.

BLAST Premier Spring American Showdown 2022, which drew more than 137K Peak Viewers in the Grand final between paiN and FURIA, rounds out the Top-5 tournaments in the Portuguese segment.

The most popular esports channel of the month is Gaules. The Brazilian creator officially broadcast PGL Major Antwerp 2022 in Portuguese and gathered more than 707.6K Peak Viewers at the Cloud9 vs. Imperial match, which has become a new record for the channel.

In second place is the PGL channel, which CS:GO Major Grand final broadcasts were followed by 640.9K Peak Viewers. Russian-language broadcast of the match on the Maincast channel attracted 357.7K Peak Viewers (5th place). In 3rd and 4th places are the LCK_Korea and Riot Games channels, which drew 481.9K and 383.7K Peak Viewers, respectively, at the MSI 2022 Grand final.