Cumulative viewing time for mirror broadcasts of esports tournaments surpasses 500 million minutes - Japanese esports tournament viewing trends from April to June 2023 [PLAYDATA]
Mirror broadcasts by streamers and VTubers, not including official channels, have broken through the 500 million minutes watched mark, making up approximately 30% of the total viewership. Notably, events for Street Fighter 6 have achieved a combined peak concurrent viewership exceeding 500,000, showcasing the considerable influence of these alternative broadcasts over the official tournament streams.
PlayBrain Inc. (headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo)has revealed the viewership trends for domestic esports tournaments from April to June 2023 based on its esports broadcast analytics service “PLAYDATA.”
While we have previously provided trend reports on domestic esports viewership trends gathered via the “TAIYORO” esports tournament calendar site, we will now share insights through “PLAYDATA,” our esports data analysis service launched in May 2023.
Cumulative viewing time of mirror distribution exceeds 500 million minutes
Between April 1 and June 30, 2023, out of the total viewing time of 1.76 billion minutes recorded across 175 esports tournaments and events, approximately 510 million minutes, or about 30%, came from streams other than the official channels. This achievement sets a new record in PLAYDATA's analytics, underscoring the growing significance of mirror broadcasts like watch parties in the overall esports viewership landscape.
*Share of total viewing time from mirror broadcasts
Highlighted below are the events that contributed significantly to these outcomes.
1st Crazy Raccoon Cup Street Fighter 6 (June 25, 2023)
This Street Fighter 6 esports tournament event for Street Fighter 6 was organized by the professional gaming team “Crazy Raccoon.” Centered around top streamers and professional gamers who participated in the event, this event was broadly broadcasted across a total of 20 mirror channels on Twitch and YouTube, in addition to the official channel.
These non-official broadcasts amassed a total viewing time of 170 million minutes, with combined peak concurrent viewership exceeded 500,000, marking it as a significantly larger event compared to previous help Japanese esports events.
VCT Masters Tokyo (June 11-25, 2023)
The first international VALORANT tournament held in Japan amassed over 120 million minutes from mirror broadcasts, amounting for about 40% of the total viewing time for the entire event.
MSI 2023 (May 2-21, 2023)
The international League Of Legends tournament, held in London, saw about 50% of its total viewing time came from mirror broadcasts, amounting to 62 million minutes.
3rd Crazy Raccoon Cup Overwatch2 (June 17-18, 2023)
This esports tournament held for the FPS title Overwatch2 and organized by the professional gaming team Crazy Raccoon was watched via mirror feeds for 40 million minutes, or about 80% of the event's total viewing time.
About PLAYDATA
PLAYDATA uses its unique methodology to collect and maintain viewership information from over 60,000 domestic game-related broadcasting channels. With PLAYDATA's service, you can access a detailed PDF reports for specific esports events. These reports offer in-depth insights, including trends in the number of viewers watching simultaneously during the tournament and comparative analyses of viewership for esports events of other games that were broadcast concurrently.
- Esports teams facing difficulties in reporting tournament results to sponsors due to a lack of accessible data.
- Event organizers looking to compare viewer numbers and sponsors of other esports tournaments and events within the same game to set benchmarks.
- Sponsors seeking to identify the best times for ad placements by analyzing peak viewership moments during tournaments or aiming to assess ad exposure through total accumulated viewing hours.