Mobile esports title Arena of Valor continues to showcase its popularity in Southeast Asia (SEA) with the game’s Arena of Valor Premier League 2023 event recording over 900,000 peak viewers.
According to Esports Charts, the SEA-only major event saw an average viewership of 172,649 across its over 150-hour total airtime. The event’s most popular match-up was the grand final, which saw Saigon Phantom walk out victorious against Bacon Time.
Arena of Valor Premier League’s viewership was largely buoyed by Vietnamese-speaking streaming platforms, with the event garnering a peak viewership of 631,600 across Vietnamese-language streams. The event’s most popular platform was YouTube (699,000 peak viewers), however, TikTok also brought in a peak of 160,000.
Organised by Singaporean game developer Garana, the Arena of Valor Premier League is a major event within the esport that now happens halfway through its 2023 season. Despite not winning the event, Thai-based esports organisation Bacon Time recorded the most hours watched in the competition, totalling over 9.1m. Three of the top five most viewed matchups featured Bacon Time.
This is the most popular AOV Premier League event to date with its two previous versions recording peak viewing figures of 670,000 (2020) and 596,000 (2022), respectively.
Arena of Valor, also known as Honor of Kings to Chinese audiences, is a widely popular esports title within SEA and China. In China, the game has its own franchised esports league, the King Pro League, that features the likes of Premier League football club Wolves and Chinese LPL franchise RNG, among others. The game was developed by TiMi Studio and published in 2016.
In 2022 Arena of Valor went through significant esports changes that ultimately led to the Arena of Valor Premier League becoming exclusive to only SEA teams. The Arena of Valor World Cup, the game’s major global tournament, later rebranded to the Honor of Kings International Championship in a move towards the Honor of Kings branding.
Later in the year, the Honor of Kings International Championship will see teams from both Arena of Valor and Honor of Kings compete for its $10m (~£7.7m) prize pool.
