Top Esports Events Where Non-Final Matches Outshined the Finals
Recently, the RLCS 2024 World Championship viewership statistics caught our eye: the playoffs match between G2 Stride and Karmine Corp was the most popular game of the event, achieving over 100,000 more concurrent viewers than the event’s ultimate grand finals. In this case, Karmine Corp’s support from its content creator and founder Kamet0 helped the match to outshine even the ultimate world championship match for Rocket League.
Usually, we expect viewership to steadily increase throughout the playoffs stage, but sometimes, earlier matches during the event record the most popular game. From content-creator-powered teams to organizations representing esports’ largest regions, the reasons behind matches outperforming their respective grand finals are varied. Esports Charts has collected data on the most examples of this phenomenon, to explore cases across various esports titles and genres.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang combined large regional audiences to great success
For this data, Esports Charts collated the most popular esports events, whose peak was reached outside the event’s grand final. Due to this data reflecting the most popular esports events, the world’s two most popular esports are represented here: League of Legends and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Leading the way at the top of our data, the M4 World Championship reached 4.27M Peak Viewers.
The showdown between Blacklist International and RRQ Hoshi during the world championship’s Upper Bracket Semi-Finals featured two of the esports’ favourite teams from its largest regions: Indonesia and the Philippines. RRQ Hoshi has four MPL Indonesia championships under their belt, and Blacklist International has claimed an MPL Philippines championship three times, as well as having won the M3 World Championship. These two teams managed to outperform the M4 grand final thanks to the combination of Indonesian and Filipino audiences, which made up a majority of the viewership at the M4 World Championship.
Moving down the list, RRQ Hoshi is featured twice during our ranking here. Their match against Fnatic ONIC PH (who were known as ONIC Philippines at the time of the match) at the M3 World Championship received 3.19M Peak Viewers, once again thanks to combining Filipino and Indonesian audiences. One example of an ML:BB game which didn’t outperform finals due to combining major regional audiences, RRQ Hoshi’s MPL Indonesia match against EVOS Legends during Season 9 also outperformed the event’s final, reaching 2.85M Peak Viewers.
EVOS Legends dominated the first map of the series, defeating RRQ Hoshi in less than 12 minutes. Despite the dominant performance from their opponents, RRQ Hoshi managed to reverse-sweep the series, and win the final game of the regular season 2-1. If EVOS Legends had won the match, they would have been the only team to win both of their matches against RRQ Hoshi; millions of Indonesians tuned into the game, and viewership dynamics show a stark increase in viewers after EVOS managed to take the first map victory. In short, the MPL ID Season 9 enjoyed a viewership boost as Indonesian fans tuned in to watch an esports storyline unfold in real-time and waited with bated breath to see if RRQ would be defeated at the final hurdle of the regular season.
Drawing eyes through the best games that League of Legends has to offer
Moving across to our other MOBA of this ranking, League of Legends’ semi-finals match between G2 Esports and T1 at the 2019 World Championship was slightly more popular than the event's grand final, thanks once again to a combination of major regional audiences. The match featured the top teams from two League of Legends’ largest audiences: Korea and Europe. Not only did these teams represent their respective regions, but they were also their regions’ most successful teams ever: G2 Esports boasted 7 LEC titles at the time of the event, and T1 had 6 LCK titles under their belt.
The European home crowd erupted into a roar as G2 Esports took the lead over T1 at Worlds 2019
The match was a true clash of the titans. G2 Esports had won not only both LEC titles earlier in 2019, but also claimed the international event Mid-Season Invitational. T1 had returned to the top of Korea after a rough couple of years and claimed both LCK titles earlier that year: their comeback to the top had brought massive excitement to Korean audiences. Although not the grand final of the 2019 World Championship, this match was understood by fans to be the clash of the world’s strongest League of Legends teams, and during a year when T1 had drummed up massive regional support from their fans.
The other two examples from League of Legends were the Mid-Season Invitational 2024 & MSI 2023. Both of these events saw T1 eliminated during the Lower Bracket Final, and interestingly, both times they were eliminated by Chinese team Bilibili Gaming. The most popular match of the MSI 2023 was their Upper Bracket Final against JD Gaming, which massively outperformed the all-Chinese Grand-Final between JD Gaming and Bilibili Gaming.
The match between T1 and Bilibili at the MSI 2024 received more than 31% of its total peak viewership from Korean-speaking audiences, and another 23.6% from Vietnamese-speaking audiences. Ultimately, the results of the two MSI events reflects the popularity of T1, not only within Korea, but also from other Asian audiences. This is one example of an esports organization which almost precedes the esports title itself in popularity, and this is something we will look at further with other examples.
In summary, our top ranking here reflects three major reasons why a match at an event would outperform the ultimate final game. Firstly, sometimes a match-up at an event is simply ideal and represents the largest audiences for the esports title, such as the power of the combined Indonesian and Filipino audiences in ML:BB. Secondly, good esports is just good esports; when a match has a storyline behind it to excite fans, or it features two of the world’s undisputedly best teams, viewership will rise. Lastly, some esports organizations are simply massively popular, and will always bring fans to their games. This last factor is something we will explore with further examples in other esports.
Counter-Strike dominated by NAVI and s1mple’s popularity
Looking towards three of the world’s most popular esports titles, Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and Valorant, many matches at events have outperformed the Grand Final, mostly due to highly popular esports organizations and their loyal following.
In Counter-Strike, NAVI is one of the most popular teams, thanks to being one of the esports’ most recognisable brands, and also their previous star player s1mple. S1mple was considered the world’s best Counter-Strike player for many years, and together, his personal brand and NAVI’s esports brand has helped the organization to become a top contender for Counter-Strike’s most popular organization.
At the IEM Rio Major 2022, NAVI enjoyed 1.43M Peak Viewers during their quarter-final match against FURIA. This was a dream match-up for the event, as this was the first Major to be hosted in Brazil, and Brazilian organization FURIA looked strong through the playoffs stage. Brazilian Counter-Strike was in a lull the years following 2017, but FURIA managed to achieve a top 8 result in both Majors throughout 2021, and fans were excited to see them perform at home in 2022. FURIA ultimately defeated NAVI 2-1, but their semifinals match was significantly less watched. The stage featuring both FURIA and NAVI was a dream-come-true for the organizers, and this match was so popular the Rio Major became the third-most-popular Counter-Strike event ever, at the time.
At the BLAST Premier Global Final 2020, NAVI’s match against Team Vitality was able to reach 687.7K PV, due to a combination of reasons. S1mple was in top-form for this game, accumulating 78 frags across three maps, and his and NAVI’s popularity were a significant contributor to the match’s viewership. The game’s first map also went to overtime, drumming up excitement for the series as more and more fans tuned in for this close game.
At the time, Team Vitality and NAVI were also the second and third-highest ranked teams across the globe, but this factor is not as significant as it may first appear. In the event’s finals, NAVI faced off against global #1 Astralis and defeated them 2-0. Despite facing the world’s highest-ranked team, the game generated about 40K fewer viewers at peak than their match against Vitality. Viewership potentially did not rise as high because NAVI walked over Astralis, defeating them 16-12 and 16-5.
Dota 2 reached higher than finals with competitive, close games
Similarly, Team Liquid’s match against LGD.Forever Young at The International 2017 was more popular than their grand final game against NewBee. Team Liquid were eliminated to the Lower Bracket after their first game in the Upper Bracket, and they clawed their way all the way to the Lower Bracket Final against LGD. Their rival managed to take the first map of the series in a hard-fought win, but Team Liquid quickly turned things around with a rapid reverse-sweep, generating 925.4K Peak Viewers along the way. This game was only barely more popular than the Grand Final, where Team Liquid walked through NewBee as if they weren’t there, taking a 3-0 victory to secure their The International title.
For Dota 2, another similar situation emerged at the WePlay AniMajor, although this event’s viewership was also affected by a Chinese team competing in the Grand Final. The Lower Bracket Final between T1 and Evil Geniuses was the most popular match of the event thanks to the hard-faught game featuring two of esports' most-respected organizations.
T1’s brand awareness is nowhere near its LoL strength in Dota 2, but their match against EG was very close, and in the end, a hard-fought victory for EG. The following grand final match featured a Chinese team, which negatively affected our viewership statistics, as we cannot account for Chinese livestreaming platforms. The final of the event between PSG.LGD and EG was a quick one, with PSG.LGD dispatching Evil Geniuses with a dominant 3-0 victory. LGD are one of China’s top Dota 2 teams, and their domination here was likely enjoyed by many Chinese fans, whose viewership we sadly cannot track. Ultimately, the grand final of this event was only the tournament’s fifth-most-popular game.
Esports organization Sentinels outgrew the North American Valorant scene
Moving across to Valorant, we have a similar situation to Counter-Strike. Sentinels are one of the world’s most popular Valorant teams, with a fervent following in their home region of North America, but also a sizeable international fanbase which they accrued through their signings of star players and constant content creation.
Sentinels’ match against The Guard at the VCT 2022: North America Last Chance Qualifier was the event’s opening match, and its most popular. The highly popular organization was supported by many of North America’s top creators through co-casting, such as tarik, Kyedae, and shroud. These three creators contributed hundreds of thousands of concurrent viewers to the match’s peak and helped this opening game to outshine the rest of the entire qualifying event. Unfortunately, Sentinels weren’t very competitive at the event, and their following matches were less watched as it became clear they weren’t going to secure the final spot at the year’s world championship event.
Again at the VCT 2021: Stage 3 Masters Berlin, G2 Esports faced off against Sentinels twice during the Group Stage, as these two teams were part of the only three-team group at the event, and had to play each other twice. Sentinels were once again supported by large content creators, as well as bringing their own large audience through the official broadcasting channels of the event. Sentinels’ two games against G2 Esports were both more popular than the event’s grand finals, which received 100,000 fewer PV than their Group Stage games. G2 Esports fielded a European team at the time in Valorant, and although the combination of European and North American audiences had an impact on the high viewership for the match, the result is largely thanks to Sentinel’s loyal community.
Similar to T1, Sentinels is an example of an esports organization which is almost more popular than the esports they compete in. NAVI is one of Counter-Strike’s best organizations in terms of viewership, but Sentinels and T1 stand a step ahead of the Ukrainian esports organization. In the end, esports is a serious competition featuring the best of the best from around the globe. If the game is completely one-sided, viewership will be low, as we have seen in our Dota 2 examples. Creating high-stakes and even matches and crafting sporting storylines is critical for esports viewership, more so than the Grand Finals tag alone.
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