GDQ was January’s most-watched e-sports tournament. A look at the streaming figures also reveals that longer airtime does not always mean fans will spend more hours watching. We are introducing this monthly esports data column to provide a quick update of the most important esports consumption behavior, particularly as is relates to streaming.
For prior esports updates, click here.
Ranking: Last Month’s Most Popular Esports Tournaments
In January, Orlando was home to the global Awesome Games Done Quick (GDQ) 2020 tournament, a semiannual video game speed run charity marathon held in the United States. Held since 2010, this year’s tournament raised US $3.16 million, according to data provided by StreamHatchet. This represents a new donation record for a GDQ event.
But GDQ is not only popular for raising big amounts of money, it also was January’s most-watched e-sports tournament. The event reached 38.4 million views through streaming platforms. This is more than double the views Method – Race to World First: Ny’alotha Event reached, which came in second place in this month’s ranking in terms of views. The next GDQ tournament will be played at the end of June, in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Also relevant in this month’s data is the fact that time played does not necessarily translate into hours watched. Method – Race to World First: Ny’alotha Event was the longest tournament, by far, with 5,498 minutes. GDQ went on for only 989 minutes. Race to World First: Ny’alotha Event reached 12.375 thousand hours watched, while GDQ almost doubled it with 22.095 thousand hours watched.
| Date | Tournament | Prize Pool | Hours Watched* | Peak CCV** | AVG CCV*** | Views | Airtime |
| Jan 4th 20 Jan 4th 20 |
Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 | – | 22,095,216 | 261,042 | 119,448 | 38,421,190 | 989:0 |
| Jan 18th 20 Jan 26th 20 |
DreamLeague Season 13: The Leipzig Major | $1,000,000 | 12,896,190 | 316,783 | 133,597 | 14,204,743 | 614:0 |
| Jan 28th 20 Feb 8th 20 |
Method – Race to World First: Ny’alotha Event | – | 12,375,006 | 105,312 | 46,031 | 17,633,650 | 5,498:0 |
| Jan 24th 20 Mar 21st 20 |
LEC 2020 Spring Season | – | 11,974,014 | 470,138 | 203,593 | 13,493,603 | 468:0 |
| Jan 25th 20 May 25th 20 |
LCS 2020 Spring Season | – | 10,182,510 | 381,637 | 176,250 | 9,931,718 | 264:0 |
*LIVE HOURS WATCHED: The Total live hours watched for a specific event across all major NA streaming platforms
**PEAK CCV: The Time-dependent maximum concurrent sessions that watching the top moment of the broadcast across multiple streams
***AVG CCV: The Time-dependent average concurrent sessions that watched a broadcast across multiple streams
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