Street Fighter 6 x Esports World Cup 2024 missed out on peak audience due to a late start in Asia

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Japanese has become the most popular language for broadcasting the Street Fighter 6 tournament, which was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as part of the Esports World Cup 2024. Despite the efforts, the organizers didn't reach the full potential of the Japanese audience. Due to time zone differences and the late start of matches, many Japanese fans had to turn in for the night before the grand finals.

The championship featured 32 players, with nearly a third hailing from Japan, where fighting games (and Street Fighter 6 in particular) are extremely popular. Six Japanese players made it to the playoffs, but none managed to win the championship. The title was claimed by Chinese player Xiao Hai, who defeated Japanese competitor Kawano in the finals.

Xiao Hai is a highly skilled fighter with extensive experience across various games, including Sailor Moon S, Samurai Shodown, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and different versions of The King of Fighters and Street Fighter. His victory at the Esports World Cup 2024 earned him a career-best prize of $300,000.

The Street Fighter 6 tournament in Riyadh generated over 2.2 million Hours Watched, ranking fifth for the game this year. The average viewership was 93,400, with a peak audience reaching 154,100 viewers. In terms of peak viewership, the event placed eighth this year, more than twice behind major tournaments like the Evolution Championship Series 2024 and Capcom Cup X.

Interestingly, the highest peak viewership for the Esports World Cup 2024 occurred during the first round of the playoffs. By the time of the grand finals, viewership had dropped by 11%, with the final match not even making it into the top five most-watched matches of the tournament. This decline can be attributed to the inconvenient scheduling and time zones for the primary audience. As noted earlier, the majority of participants were from Japan, and the core audience consisted largely of Japanese fans. By the time the crucial matches were being played, it was already late into the night in Japan. A similar trend was observed in Chinese streams, where the longer the tournament dragged on, the more viewers left.

Japanese was the dominant language during the tournament, accounting for 58% of the total watch time. English and Chinese also ranked highly, together making up around 27% of the viewership. In terms of platforms, approximately two-thirds of watch time was generated on Twitch.

The tournament was covered on the official Esports World Cup channels, but there was also significant coverage by community casters. Among the most notable was fps_shaka, a Japanese streamer of Natus Vincere, whose channel became the most popular at the tournament, surpassing others in all major metrics.

Most popular StreetFight tournaments in 2024

Upcoming championships for StarCraft II, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, and EA Sports FC will begin in Riyadh in the coming days. By the end of August, winners in PUBG: Battlegrounds, Rocket League, Tekken 8, and Rennsport will also be announced. You can follow the progress and results of these tournaments through Esports Charts.