A mobile game tournament had stronger viewership than any other event in Feb, even VCT LOCK//IN

A group stage match in the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang MPL Indonesia Split 1 had the most viewers out of any esports tournament in the month of February. Even beating out global juggernauts like IEM Katowice 2023 Grand Finals and VCT LOCK//IN. 

To those in the west, it may seem absurd that a mobile game highly inspired by League of Legends would garner a massive amount of viewers, enough to comfortably trump the likes of VCT LOCK//IN and IEM Katowice. However, that is our reality.

In a Regular Season match between RRQ vs EVOS Legends, the broadcast reached a peak viewership of 1,780,665, according to data from Esports Charts. This number not only beats out the grand finals for both VCT LOCK//IN and IEM Katowice, it even beats VCT Champions 2022 comfortably. 

RRQ is regarded as one of the game’s greatest teams, and also the most popular. Their roster has multiple MPL Indonesian and regional trophies in their case. They consistently placed 5th to 2nd in every single World Championship they qualify for. And if they aren’t getting trophies, they are still always considered favorites for any tournament they enter.

The team has a longstanding rivalry against EVOS Legends, as they denied RRQ the trophy to the game’s first World Championship trophy. 

Unsurprisingly, the match was mainly broadcast in Indonesian. Of course, it had broadcasts in other languages too, but the Indonesian stream accounted for 1.3 million of the 1.7 million peak viewership numbers. 

As of writing, there are still three more weeks to go in the Regular Season, and it’s expected the Grand Finals would break records once again throughout March.

Mobile Legends is essentially the industry’s sleeping giant, and the biggest mobile game in the world. Earlier in this year’s M4 World Championship, it became the third most viewed esport tournament of all time, with a peak viewership of 4.2 million viewers. 

Below you can find the top five most-viewed esports events in history.

The match was the upper-bracket semi-final of RRQ vs Blacklist International. And it only lost to the 2022 LoL World Championship which came in second, and the 2021 Free Fire World Series at first place.