Start of MPL 2022: Viewership Stats and First Week Results

The biggest regional tournaments in the most popular mobile discipline of 2021, ML:BB, kicked off last weekend. MPL will significantly expand its geography in the new season: Africa/Middle East will join the Southeast Asian divisions, and Brazil along with Cambodia will have their second seasons after successful debuts.

The tournaments of the largest ML:BB regions, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, started first in 2022. And while the start of two of them was more successful compared with the previous season, the audience of the third one has decreased quite a lot. Esports Charts sums up the MPL’s first week.

MPL Indonesia Season 9

We start by analyzing the first week's results in the largest MPL region, Indonesia, where the ML:BB competition scene is watched by millions of viewers. And it was clear in the first week of Season 9 that even more viewers will follow the league in 2022.

The greatest excitement among viewers in the first week was the match between RRQ Hoshi, the most popular team in the region, and Alter Ego. The game was watched by 1.052 million Peak Viewers, nearly 22K more than the most popular game of the first week of Season 8 attracted (it should be noted that RRQ and AE also competed then).

In total, the first week's matches accumulated 6.8 million Hours Watched in three game days, and were watched by 367.7K Average Viewers. The first metric improved compared with Season 8 (+7%), while the second metric had a slight drop (-2%), but that does not mean that interest in the event is waning: there is no doubt that as the season progresses, the competition audience will only grow.

MPL Malaysia Season 9

Together with Indonesia and the Philippines, Malaysia was one of the first countries to hold the MPL tournaments. As in the previous season, the most popular game of the first week was the match featuring HomeBois: the team's match against MAB Esports attracted more than 85K Peak Viewers. That is 26% more than the most popular game of the first week of Season 8 had, when HB played against the TODAK squad.

The first week of MPL MY Season 9 was much more successful than Season 8 in terms of viewership statistics. The Average Viewers number grew by 12% (from 30K to 34K AV), and the Hours Watched number increased by 4% (593.9K to 620.6K HW).

MPL Philippines Season 9

Teams from the Philippines became the main stars of the M3 World Championship held in December. Two teams from that region made it to the finals, and Blacklist International won a historic victory. Despite the tremendous success, the audience of the local league decreased quite a lot.

The most popular match of the first week was the game between M3 finalists Blacklist International and ONIC Philippines. It was watched by over 320.7K Peak Viewers, but that is 30% fewer than the most-watched game of the first week of the eighth season, when BI played against Nexplay EVOS.

The rest of the first weekend numbers are also noticeably lower compared with the previous season. The Average Viewers number dropped by 25% (from 174.4K to 130.1K AV), and the total number of the first week's Hours Watched declined by 39% (from 2.9 million to 1.8 million HW). MPL PH Season 9's first week showed quite modest results compared with all of last season's stages.

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MPL leagues in most of the other regions will start soon. The league's debut MENA season kicks off in two days, followed by the tournament in Cambodia, and in early March in Brazil. Moreover, the competition will also traditionally take place in Singapore, but the start date of the spring split has not been announced yet.