Most Watched Esports Games of 2022

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Esports Charts has compiled the top of the most watched disciplines in 2022 and compared their audience reach with last year's numbers. Apex Legends shows the greatest growth, the gap between Valorant and CS:GO is gradually closing, and the most popular mobile title's statistics went down a bit, as the final event of the season was scheduled to 2023.

5th place — Valorant

Team-based shooter Valorant by Riot Games came in fifth with 283.4 million Hours Watched, which is +32.9% from 2021. The main tournament of last season was VALORANT Champions 2022. At that time, Istanbul managed to set a discipline record for peak online broadcasts, which exceeded 1.5 million concurrent viewers. For comparison, during VALORANT Champions 2021, the same figure was at the level of 1.09 million people.

2023 promises to be even more optimistic for Valorant. Riot Games will finally launch three regional partner leagues in America, Europe and Asia that will structure the professional scene and make it more convenient for teams and spectators alike.

4th place — Dota 2

Dota 2 stopped one step away from getting into the top 3 of the ranking. MOBA from Valve scored 313.6 million Hours Watched, which is almost 10% less than last year's result. In general, 2022 cannot be called a successful year for the discipline. The main tournament of the season - The International 2022 - for the first time in ten years, failed to update records in terms of prize pool and audience coverage.

Peak online at The International 2022 was "only" 1.7 million viewers. For any other discipline, this would be a fantastic figure, but Dota 2 fans probably remember that the last World Championship gathered more than 2.7 million people at the screens at the same time. Despite the apparent reduction in metrics, the game still ranks high in the top most viewed esports disciplines.

3rd place — Mobile Legends

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang became the most watched mobile discipline in 2022 despite a 14.4% drop in Hours Watched. Broadcasts of the title totaled 331.4 million HW over the past 12 months.

The highest Peak Viewers number of the Mobile Legends tournaments in 2022 was 2.8 million. This number was reached during the match between EVOS.Legends and RRQ Hoshi at MPL Indonesia Season 9. MLBB Southeast Asia Cup 2022 (2.8 million PV), MPL Indonesia Season 10 (2.3 million PV) and 31st Southeast Asian Games ML:BB (2.2 million PV) also passed the 2 million mark. 

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang could have shown much higher numbers, but it is important to note that the World Cup, which is legitimately considered the main event in the discipline, was not included in the 2022 results. The point is that M3 World Championship was held in December 2021, while M4 World Championship was postponed to January 2023. As a result, 2022 turned out to be a bit "modest".

2nd place — CS:GO

CS:GO esports matches accumulated 448.4 million Hours Watched in 2022, which is 8.5% more from last year. Moreover, the shooter by Valve became the leader by Airtime (14.4K hours) among other disciplines in the Top.

PGL Major Antwerp 2022 was the most popular CS:GO tournament in 2022 — the Belgian Major's Grand Final between Natus Vincere and FaZe Clan was watched by 2.1 million Peak Viewers. This has become the second highest number in the history of the discipline behind PGL Major Stockholm 2021 (2.7 million PV).

Last year was quite a successful one for the CS:GO esports scene. It is important to mention that not only Majors, but also other big tournaments like IEM Cologne 2022 and IEM Katowice 2022 drew big audiences.

1st place — League of Legends

The title of the most popular esports discipline in 2022 goes to League of Legends. Tournaments in the iconic MOBA by Riot Games accumulated 617K Hours Watched, 7% fewer from 2021.

The 2022 World Championship, which has set a new discipline record for Peak Viewers, became the most popular LoL tournament of the past year. This happened at the Grand Final between T1 and DRX, which drew more than 5.1 million PV. In comparison, the previous World Championship saw over 4 million PV.

2022 was also a breakout year for the Mid-Season Invitational Series, with the Grand Final in May attracting more than 2.1 million PV. In fact, that's more than it was at the 2017 and 2018 World Championships.

Please note that all disciplines from the top 5 had tournaments where they managed to reach the mark of 1.5 million viewers at the peak. If we talk about a wider coverage of disciplines, then Arena of Valor and Rocket League also entered the top 10, and PUBG Mobile turned out to be closest to the top five. More detailed statistics on games can be found on this page.