Video games captivate audiences not just on platforms like Twitch but also on other widely used social networks like TikTok.
This is proven by the 75% jump in esports viewing since 2020, measured in watched hours, as one study suggests. The key factor attributed to this achievement is the power of streaming.
Streamed esports content peaked at 2.76 billion hours in viewership in 2023, as per a joint report from GameSquare and Stream Hatchet. The study reveals a 75% growth in just three years from 1.58 billion in 2020 to 2.35 billion in 2021 and 2.65 billion in 2022. This implies a year-on-year increase in viewership.
On a larger scale, audiences for sports events on stream platforms are also gradually increasing. According to the research, Twitch and YouTube garnered over 150 million hours in livestreaming, marking over 2,100% upturn since 2022.
Successful events such as Gerard Piqué’s and Ibai Llanos’ King’s and Queen’s League soccer, which draws together professional footballers and content creators, have further propelled this trend, as the report mentions.
“Thursday Night Football,” a weekly NFL game broadcast, alone racked up over 4 million viewed hours on Twitch in 2023.
User-generated content
To push esports content into prominence, publishers are frequently resorting to content creators for co-streaming tournaments on their individual channels. As per the report, the market portion climbed from 10% in 2020 to over a third in 2023 due to audiences generated by costreaming.
Streamers are also leveraging the advantage of “simulcasting,” which involves airing content on multiple platforms like Twitch and TikTok concurrently. After analyzing the audience of three creators – Ninja, Willeyrex, and TheGrefg, Stream Hatchet found out that the average audience grew by almost 69% across all platforms. In simpler terms, “for every 1,000 viewers on one platform, an additional 700 viewers were reached per minute on another,” as reported by AFP Relaxnews.