Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’s (MLBB) franchised esports league MPL Philippines Season 12 has recorded a viewership drop in peak and average viewers compared to Season 11, according to Esports Charts.
With nearly 769,000 peak viewers, the tournament is the ninth most-watched MLBB event of the year, below its previous season and the Snapdragon Pro Series Season 3 SEA.
MPL Philippines Season 12’s air time of 183h was higher than previous iterations, contributing to over 19.8m hours watched. Still, the event cannot compete with the 937,000 peak viewers and 109,000 average viewers that Season 11 recorded. This comes after Season 11 saw an increase in peak but a decrease in average viewership.
In comparison, Season 12 of the MPL Indonesian league recently became the first MLBB event to reach 100m watch hours, while the Malaysian iteration broke its viewership record for the sixth consecutive year. Despite lower viewership figures, it is worth noting that MPL Philippines Season 12 is still the fourth-highest edition of the competition in terms of peak viewers.
The most popular match of MPL Philippines Season 12 was the Grand Finals between Blacklist International and AP.Bren, in which the latter secured the title and a lion’s share of its $150,000 (~£123,000) prize pool. However, Blacklist International won in terms of fan popularity, accumulating 9.1m total hours watched. The team also competed in four out of the five most-watched matches of the season.
MPL Philippines Season 12 featured sponsors, such as SecretLab, Infinix, and Smart. Like the Indonesian MLBB league, MPL Philippines operates under a franchised model and currently hosts eight teams.
Both AP.Bren and Blacklist International have qualified for the M5 World Championship starting in November this year.
The largest tournament of the MLBB competitive calendar will be held in two locations – Kuala Lumpur (WildCard Stage) and the Philippines (Main Stage). This year’s World Championship will feature a team from China for the first time. Moreover, MLBB publisher MOONTON recently announced a partnership with the Philippines Department of Tourism for the event.
