After nearly two months, 25 tournaments, and the awarding of over $70M in prizes, the Esports World Cup (EWC) is over. Pro teams from around the world competed in MOBAs, Fighters, Shooters, Battle Royales, and RTS titles for the right to call themselves the world’s best gamers. The spectacle of the EWC would have been impossible without the financial backing of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman who has grown the Saudi gaming industry to over $2B USD as of 2025.
The EWC continues to make massive leaps forward for worldwide esports and multi-game tournaments. But is live-streaming viewership keeping pace? Our team at Stream Hatchet was proud to partner with the Esports World Cup to answer that very question with minute-to-minute analytics. In this article, we’re giving a little peek behind the scenes with a full rundown of the most popular games, genres, and co-streamers from EWC 2025.
If you’re looking for information regarding the Esports World Cup 2024, please see our previous article here.
TL;DR Takeaways by Stream Hatchet:
- With just 3 more games on the roster than last year, the EWC 2025 brought in 71M more hours watched – a jump of 73%
- MOBAs carried EWC 2025 viewership: Though MOBAs featured in only 5 out of 25 tournaments, they represented just over 50% of all hours watched
- Co-streaming is integral to the EWC’s success: Co-streamers brought in 41.5% of all hours watched with some games seeing upwards of 70% co-streaming viewership
The Esports World Cup 2025 Leaps Ahead of Last Year’s Event
The EWC 2025 set a new benchmark for multi-game tournaments, smashing last year’s records in every key metric. EWC 2025 generated 168M hours watched (73% higher than 2024), while average viewership climbed to 157K (33% higher than 2024). But it’s the peak viewership that really stands out: EWC 2025 was able to reach 3.2M peak viewers, 1M more than 2024. This is a huge step up, signalling the Saudi Arabian tournament’s growing global reach. As only the second edition of the EWC, there’s still plenty more room for this competition to grow with additions to its roster of 24 games.
Best Performing Game and Genres from Esports World Cup 2025
Speaking of those 24 games, they can roughly be broken down into six genres: MOBAs, Shooters, Fighting Games, Strategy Games, Racing Games, and one Sports game. At EWC 2025, MOBAs once again led the charge by accounting for more than half of all viewership with 85.6M hours watched. However, MOBAs saw the least dramatic growth of any genre with just a 41.8% increase from last year. Shooters weren’t far behind, capturing 65M hours (a 112% increase from 2024), but it also took 11 games to reach this level – twice the number of MOBA titles.
Fighting games and Strategy games emerged as the surprise standouts of the EWC 2025, improving on their position from last year by 186.1% and 254.8%, respectively. The Fighting genre is a particularly important one for Saudi Arabia: They recently invested significant money and effort into the launch of SNK’s Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (covered in more detail here). This was their chance to put the game on a global platform, but the results suggest this franchise revival will take a little more time to find its audience. Still, the Fighting genre is on the rise and the future looks positive.
Mobile Games stole the spotlight at the EWC 2025, with the Men’s Tournament for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang leading all tournaments at 543K average viewers while PUBG Mobile took third place with 402K average viewers. Although just 5 of the 25 tournaments at EWC 2025 were on mobile, they collectively accounted for 45% of the event’s entire hours watched. Mobile Games are truly global, reaching into regions like Southeast Asia and Latin America with greater adoption rates than PC games. The success of Mobile Games on this world stage proves the EWC is doing its job of representing a global gaming audience.
Looking across the other titles here, League of Legends held strong from its performance last year with an average viewership of 448K average viewers, while Riot’s other title VALORANT made the Top 10 in its first showing at EWC with 157K average viewers. It was also nice to see a non-MOBA and non-Shooter game make it into the Top 10, with Street Fighter 6 hitting an average viewership of 136K.
Co-streaming’s Integral Role in the Esports World Cup 2025’s Success
Co-streaming played a major role at the EWC 2025, with 41.5% of total hours watched coming from community broadcasts rather than official channels. Call of Duty titles led the way, as Warzone (88%) and Black Ops 6 (77%) saw the vast majority of their viewership powered by co-streamers. Other top esports followed suit, including Counter-Strike (76%), Apex Legends (75%), and League of Legends (73%). The sheer magnitude of these proportions show how co-streaming has become a cornerstone of esports distribution. And, for publishers of the games featured at EWC 2025, they should be paying attention to which co-streamers are driving the demand for their games to potentially partner with them for influencer marketing.
Speaking of which, we dove into the top co-streamers of the entire EWC 2025. Caedrel led the pack with 3M hours, with his coverage of League of Legends bringing in tons of viewers as always and solidifying him as GOAT of global LoL esports. Close behind were scump (2.3M), Snax Gaming (2.1M), and ohnePixel (2M), each bringing their own communities into the fold. What’s interesting is that these top co-streamers of a multi-game tournament don’t necessarily line up with the top co-streamers for specific tournaments, as we’ve covered previously. But these personalities standing out shows how the EWC is able to pull in more casual audiences as well, elevating itself above esports fanatics and into a cultural event..
_
The Esports World Cup 2025 cemented itself as one of the most powerful forces in competitive gaming, breaking records across hours watched, peak viewership, and global reach. MOBAs and Shooters remain the pillars of esports viewership, but the explosive growth of Fighting, Strategy, and Mobile games shows audiences are hungry for variety.
With co-streaming driving nearly half of total viewership, the EWC’s success highlights a clear path forward: Broaden the competitive landscape and embrace new ways to connect with fans. By expanding into emerging genres and continuing to empower creators, the tournament can capture even larger, more diverse audiences. Finding new online communities through other genres and competitive forms could also open new pathways, such as tapping into the speedrunning community to feature pros from single player experiences. We’re excited to see the EWC’s moves as it continues to grow in 2026.
To keep up to date with the latest events shaking up live streaming, follow Stream Hatchet and receive exclusive newsletter-only content:
