Viewership statistics and infomration for WoW's AWC 2024 events

The official World of Warcraft esports series the Arena World Championship returns for its 17th year of competition. This year of events have $960,000 up for grabs, and the viewership for the year's first events is promising.

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is the game’s 9th expansion, and 2024 marks not only the final year of the expansion but the 20th anniversary of World of Warcraft. To celebrate this achievement, World of Warcraft will host both Arena World Championship and Mythic Dungeon International events throughout the year, before the game moves onto the next expansion: The War Within.

2024 also brings a new Mid-Season Clash event, which will be hosted in March and adds some new stakes to keep fans interested throughout the whole season. Each region, North America and Europe will host 4 Cups throughout the year, and two Gauntlet events. The Mid-Season Clash is a cross-region event, bringing the best teams from both regions together to compete for $100,000. The year of AWC events is divided into two seasons, the first of which culminates in the Mid-Season Clash and the second in the Grand Final.

The first season of 2024, Season 3, has already begun. NA and EU have held two Cups, for which each team earns qualification points through their placing. The top 3 teams by qualification points directly qualify for the Season 3 Mid-Season Clash, and the Gauntlet in each region will decide the final team each region will send to the event. Season 4 will mirror this format: two Cups deciding the top 3 teams of each region with a final spot attainable in the Gauntlet. However, in Season 4, teams are qualifying for the 2024 Grand Final, which is a cross-region event to end the year with a prize pool of $300,000.

Season 3 Cup 1 and 2 are already completed in both regions, and viewership for the events is on an up compared to the previous set of cups held in mid-2023. With a new yearly format and viewership on the rise, World of Warcraft’s official esports scene is looking healthy even after all these years.

Arena World Championship 2024 Season 3 Viewership Statistics

Arena World Championship 2024 Season 3 Cup 1 Viewership Statistics Comparison of viewership for the opening Cup of AWC Season 3 and Season 2

Starting the year strong, the EU and NA Season 3 Cup 1 garnered much higher viewership than the previous Season 2 events. So far in 2024, the EU iteration of the events has been the more popular of the two. The Peak Viewers figure of 36.5K was recorded during the final match of the AWC 2024 Season 3 EU Cup 1, which featured Lava Lava and Hoolibang.

In total, the two cups across both Europe and North America generated 417.9K Hours Watched, which is the most watch time the AWC has generated since Cup 4 of 2023, an entire year ago. Although the European event was responsible for the peak viewership, the AWC 2024 Season 3 NA Cup 1 was responsible for a majority of the watch time accumulated. The North American iteration of the event recorded 23.5K Average Viewers, over 3K more average concurrent viewers than the European Cup.

The North American side of World of Warcraft esports recorded not only higher average viewership on the official Warcraft broadcast channels but also for community casters covering the event. Even Whaazz, a Danish WoW player currently playing for ECHO Esports in Europe, recorded higher average viewership for his Twitch watch parties of the North American Cup.

Arena World Championship 2024 Season 3 EU Cup 2 Viewership Statistics Viewership statistics for the AWC 2024 Season 3 EU Cup 2

The pattern identified in the viewership statistics for Cup 1 continued for Cup 2. The AWC 2024 Season 3 EU Cup 2 generated 137.9K Hours Watched and 30.5K Peak Viewers. The Peak Viewers figure was recorded during the event's final match between ECHO Esports and Chibaku Tensai. In a surprise upset, Chibaku Tensai managed to defeat reigning champions ECHO to claim victory.

Although the European Cup recorded a higher peak viewership than its North American counterpart, the NA Cup 2 amassed both higher Average Viewers and overall Hours Watched. The North American event recorded over 2K more average concurrent viewers than the European Cup, and much higher watch time. The AWC 2024 Season 3 NA Cup 2 recorded 206.3K Hours Watched, almost 70K more than the European event. This was, however, influenced by the longer Airtime of the North American event, which was live for over 10 hours.

Watch time of all four AWC Cup events held so far this year

Watch time and peak concurrent viewership of all four AWC Cup events held so far this year

With the first couple of Cups in each region behind us, the next upcoming events are the AWC 2024 Season 3 NA Gauntlet and AWC 2024 Season 3 EU Gauntlet. In both regions, this event takes place as a one-day event on March 1. The 4th-8th ranked teams in each region based on their qualification points from the Cups events will compete for the final spot at the Mid-Season Clash.

Speaking of the Mid-Season clash, 6 of the total 8 teams have been confirmed, with 3 representatives of each region. Chibaku Tensai, ECHO Esports, and Lava Lava will represent the European side of WoW. Although Hoolibang were the victors of EU Cup 1 this season, they placed poorly at the second cup and therefore will have to compete in the Gauntlet, as the top-ranked team.

After enjoying success in both Race to World First and Mythic Dungeon International, ECHO joined the AWC scene in 2023. They experienced a dominant year, winning every single AWC event they competed in. They were victorious at all four Cups held throughout the year, and ultimately at the European Finals too. ECHO are off to a slow start this year, winning neither of the first two Season 3 Cups. With the cross-region finals aiming to crown a world champion this year, ECHO will need to reboot and come back stronger for the second half of the year if they want to maintain their dominance.

On the other side of the pond, North America will be represented by The Move, Team Liquid, and Power Frogs at the Mid-Season Clash. Team Liquid are the current reigning champions of North America, although their previous year was not as dominant as ECHO’s. Team Liquid won many events throughout last year’s AWC Dragonflight Cups, but they did lose both Cup 1 and 2 against Golden Guardians. The organisation Golden Guardians began a major esports withdrawal towards the end of 2023, and as such one of the top North American AWC teams found themselves without a sponsor.

This is how The Move came to be. The ex-Golden Guardians players stuck together through the uncertainty of losing their esports organisation and have returned for 2024’s AWC events. After defeating Team Liquid 4-1 in the first Season 3 NA Cup 1, The Move is looking to be a serious contender for world championship contention.

2024’s year of AWC events and competition is well underway. The action kicks off again on March 1 with the Gauntlet event in both regions, and the Mid-Season Clash begins immediately afterwards on March 2. With viewership looking promising for the AWC scene, the MSC’s new addition to the ecosystem may bring some welcome stakes and excitement to the 2024 schedule.