Indonesia, TikTok and community casting — key reasons for M4 World Championship viewership success
The M4 World Championship held in early January drew a record audience for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and the discipline is still yet to reach its peak. The tournament was forced to abandon one of the key streaming platforms, but it (almost) didn't suffer from that. In a new Esports Charts article, we'll tell you what made the championship a success with viewers, and how M5 can become even more popular.
Indonesia factor
It is well known that the main audience of ML:BB is located in Southeast Asia. Indonesia, which is the fourth most populous country in the world, particularly stands out from the rest. The fact that the Mobile Legends World Championship finally took place in Indonesia was one of the main reasons for the event's success. It should be recalled that the last two tournaments in the series were held in Singapore, and each of them attracted slightly more than 3 million Peak Viewers. That's about a quarter short of the M4 result.
In addition, Indonesian broadcasts have been consistently leading at all Mobile Legends international tournaments. They attract more than twice as many Average Viewers as the Filipino streams, the second most popular language in ML:BB.
Community Casting
The majority of M4 World Championship audience watched official channels of the event. However, the tournament matches were streamed not only by the organizers themselves, but also by third-party content creators.
In total, all the 3rd-party M4 streamers accounted for more than 19% of the event's total Hours Watched. Especially streamers from Indonesia, whose content is mainly the Mobile Legends gameplay, stood out among them.
The most popular M4 community caster is the former Indonesian ML:BB professional player MARSHA OZAWA, with 2.5 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. His viewers generated slightly fewer than 3 million Hours Watched. XINNN, Ihsan Luminaire, Gustian REKT and Jonathan Liandi are also in the Top 5 by this metric.
Nimo's Shutdown Was Not a Problem
The M4 World Championship was mostly watched on YouTube, the viewers of the platform generated more than 71% of the tournament's total HW.
At the 2021 World Championship, the second most popular platform was Nimo TV, which accumulated 30% of the event's HW. But in April 2022, the company shut down due to Chinese sanctions, which was a shock to the entire Asian streaming community. Despite the loss of a promising platform for broadcasts, the M4 World Championship was actively promoted on TikTok, and eventually it did not suffer at all, and even improved the viewership statistics
ML:BB Esports Will Grow Further
The Mobile Legends World Championship has not yet reached its full potential, and the next tournament in the series could become even more popular for several reasons.
First, the mobile audience in Southeast Asia is growing every year, which is also evident from the statistics of the ML:BB World Championships. At the same time, many PC gamers from Southeast Asia are switching to mobile devices because of their accessibility and the growing popularity of the industry.
Second, the upcoming M5 World Championship will be held in the Philippines. This will make even more people aware of the game and the tournament, and the number of viewers of the Tagalog broadcasts will probably increase significantly.
Third, there's always a possibility that the teams from Indonesia and the Philippines will face off in the M5 final, which has not happened in the previous two tournaments. If that happens, this clash has all the chances to become the most popular in the discipline.
It should be remembered that for two years in a row, the World Championship audience reached its peak not in the Grand Final, but in the Playoffs: during the the matches of Indonesian RRQ Hoshi against one of the giants of the Philippine scene (Blacklist International at M4 and ONIC Philippines at M3).
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