TFT World Cup viewership below expectations: Dragonlands Championship recap
Dragonlands Championship is the most prestigious tournament of the year in the Teamfight Tactics competitive scene. It took place online from the 18th-20th of November and had the best 32 players in the world battling for the world title and a piece of the $456K prize pool. Players came from eighth regions and qualified for the event by securing a placement in their regional league that guaranteed them a spot in the event, or by securing one of the four spots, two for the West and two for the Eastern leagues, in the Last Chance event.
The event had the same format as its predecessor, the Gizmos & Gadgets Championship. The group stage was played in the first two days of the event, and the finals took place on the last day. In the group stage, five games were played each day, and the top 8 participants advanced to the Finals. As for the finals, the first player to score a win after recording 18 points would be declared the champion. That player was Xunge, which gave the Chinese region its second world champion in a row.
The event didn't brake any viewership records, but still managed to gather the attention of plenty of viewers. Dragonlands Championship was live for 17 hours, and viewers from all over the world watched it for 660K hours. In the last game of the finals, 63K Peak Viewers gathered to watch Xunge secure the title and become the world champion.
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Dragonlands Championship was broadcasted in multiple languages, but none was more popular than the English one with 31K PV. It was followed by the French one with 14K PV, and the Korean language closed the podium with 7.8K PV. The event was broadcasted on three streaming platforms, with Twitch being by far the most popular one with 55.9K PV. YouTube followed with 6.7K PV, and Afreeca TV had 851 viewers.
Dragonlands Championship and qualifier's events viewership comparison
If we take a look at all the qualifying events for Dragonlands Championship, we can see that the Rising Legends: Dragonlands - Finals, which was the qualifying tournament for the EMEA region, was more popular than the World championship itself. It was also the most-watched event of the series, with 23.9% more HW than the most important tournament of the series. It's not usual for a qualifier to outperform the main tournament when it comes to viewership, especially when we are talking about the World Championship of the discipline. So it’s certainly not something to be happy about.
Dragonlands Championship is more popular and more watched than the remaining five qualifiers, but it doesn't set any viewership record. It was still a successful event, but many expected the tournament to have higher viewership numbers.
When compared to the previous TFT world championship event, the Gizmos & Gadgets Championship, we can see that the previous edition of the event had much better viewership numbers. It was able to reach a wider audience with 108K Peak Viewers tuning into the event. This means that 71.3% more simultaneous viewers watched the tournament's previous edition.
Regarding the number of Hours Watched, the story is the same, with this edition having a drop of 36.4% in the metric, not coming close to the 1 million HW mark that the previous tournament was able to reach.
The most watched & most popular TFT events ever
As mentioned above, the Dragonlands Championship didn't reach the great viewership numbers many were expecting. This becomes even more visible if we compare the tournament with the five most popular events in the history of TFT. It’s nowhere near entering the top 5 list, with four of the five events breaking the 100K mark, while Dragonlands Championship didn’t even reach 70K PV. Dragonlands Championship is far below the astonishing 299.7K PV of the Twitch Rivals Teamfight Tactics Showdown, or the 129K PV reached in the Twitch Rivals TwitchCon Teamfight Tactics.
In the Hours Watch metric, the event is also far from the top of the list. While the Twitch Rivals Teamfight Tactics Showdown, which sits at the top of the list, had 3.2 million HW, and the previous editions of the World Cup had 1 million Hours Watched, the Dragonlands Championship was only able to achieve 660K Hours Watched.
The Dragonlands Championship was not a failure by any means. It still entertained thousands of viewers from all around the world but fell short of expectations viewership-wise. In an event that joined the game’s best players in the world, with a good production, and a very good prize pool, it was expected it would attract more interest from viewers.
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