Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’s Southeast Asia Cup has recorded a peak viewership figure of over 1m for its group stages.
The group stage saw a peak of 1.17m people tune in and an average viewership of 407,000, according to esports viewership platform Esports Charts. The tournament will conclude next weekend, with the grand finals taking place on June 19th.
The Southeast Asia Cup is one of MLBB’s largest events, due to the immense games popularity within the region. Last year’s edition is the fifth most-viewed MLBB event ever, recording 2.8m peak viewers across its 73 hours of airtime.
This year’s edition of the Cup has the potential of breaking the previous event’s record. The group stage matches concluded on June 13th and saw just over 1.1m peak viewers tune into the match between EVOS.LGN and Fenix. Considering that the knockout phases of esports tournaments usually gather many more viewers than the group stages, it is to be expected that the grand final might come close to last year’s number. Last year’s highest group stage match-up garnered 1.15m peak viewers.
Despite being referred to as the The Southeast Asia Cup, the championship is a major international event for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. The tournament sees teams from the region’s franchised leagues compete for a $300,000 (£236,000) prize pool and includes teams from the SEA region countries, such as Singapore, as well as the best teams from the MENA region, Turkey and North America.
This edition of the tournament features three former MLBB World Championship winner teams: EVOS, who won the M1 tournament, Blacklist International, the winners of M3 and ECHO, winners of M4, making it one of the most competitive MLBB tournaments outside of the world championship.
