PGS 2023 Phase 1 makes all-time top-10 of most watched PUBG events

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The PUBG Global Series 2023 Phase 1, the first major championship for 2023 for the classic PC battle royale, ended on May 7. It got the revamped season off to a good start and brought a fitting end to the game’s esports scene before the new 2023 SUPER Regulations take over.

The best 24 teams throughout the Phase 1 leagues were invited for this $500K competition organized by PUBG Corporation. In the end, it was 17 Gaming who emerged as champions, topping the Grand Finals table by a handsome 35 points, thanks to four Chicken Dinners, and taking home $80K and 200 PGS points.

  Overall stats and peak matches from the tournament   

The PUBG Global Series 2023 Phase 1 did 134K Peak Viewers, which came during the Grand Final play on Day 3. In fact, four of the five most popular games were from this stage of the event, showing how invested fans were in the proceedings thanks to the presence of teams like NAVI, SONIQS, and Acend, apart from three Chinese teams battling it out for the crown.

The tournament also recorded 3.60M Hours Watched and 71K Average Viewers, helping it enter the all-time top ten in the former metric. This will be highly motivating for PUBG Corporation, who have redone the PUBG esports season by doing away with the two regional series and replacing it with three stages: in March, July, and October. Sides will have to compete for ranking points to advance to the season-ending PUBG Global Championship 2023.

When it comes to the languages, it was Vietnamese that led the line, taking up 26% of the overall pie. In fact, Asian viewers were the most active at this event, which isn’t surprising knowing how popular the game is in this region. Vietnamese, alongside Thai and Korean, took up 64.9% of the entire chart.

Apart from these three languages, only one other hit double digits in terms of the overall contribution to total watch times. One factor that helped this PUBG event was that many channels were broadcasting the action live, helping it reach a lot more viewers across the globe.

Similarly, there are always many platforms that broadcast live matches for PUBG: Battlegrounds, unlike many other esports events. This time, fans had as many as eight sources to catch the action, which is quite a luxury.

The two most successful sites were YouTube and Twitch, together taking up more than 85% of the entire viewership chart. However, their shares showed there was no one major platform that swept the board in terms of overall watch numbers.

Afreeca TV, Facebook, and Nimo TV, too, made steady contributions, as they continued to fly the flag high for the smaller streaming sites in Asia. Interestingly, Kick made an appearance on this list, albeit with very negligible numbers, and as it continues to grow and attract more top streamers, it remains to be seen how it performs in future tournaments.

  Most watched PUBG tournaments ever by Hours Watched   

When it comes to overall PUBG events, the PUBG Global Series 2023 Phase 1 did pretty well in terms of Hours Watched, ending up in the seventh position. This puts it in some esteemed company, with only the major events like the PUBG Global Championship and PBG Global Invitational ahead of it.

It was also the most-watched and popular PUBG event in 2023 and the fourth most-viewed competition since 2020. This is a big nod of approval to the organizers about the restructured esports season and a triumphant return to LAN gaming for this FPS offering.

With the new regulations now in place and the focus shifting to the PUBG Global Series 2023 Phase 2, to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from August 10 to August 20, fans are bound to see more thrilling action from their favorite teams and regions. There is also the PUBG Nations Cup 2023 to come in the middle, and judging by its success last year, all the teams will be highly motivated to prove that they’re the best PUBG esports country.