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ESL’s 10th Pro League season concluded last weekend with an upset victory by mousesports over Fnatic, leading all Twitch channels for the week.
The Yogscast crew once again harnessed the power of charity to rocket to the top of the charts with its annual Jingle Jam drive.
Magic: The Gathering continued its $10M USD esports year with the Mythic Championship VII, continuing the trend of digital competitions outperforming tabletop events.
The following content is ranked according to the total number of hours watched on Twitch from Monday to the following Sunday, with data compiled using TEO Access.
The Big Leagues
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has no official developer-run professional league like League of Legends or Overwatch, and its open structure prevents a dominant league from forming elsewhere. However, ESL’s Pro League has consistently attracted top teams to contend in its weekly format, and viewers turn out for the season finals each time.
The competition generated 4.47M hours watched on ESL’s main Twitch channel for Counter-Strike competition, peaking at 196.90K max concurrent viewers (CCV) during Sunday’s finals.
A Magical Year
Wizards of the Coast stepped into the esports realm in a big way this year as its parent company Hasbro committed $10M in prize money to competitions for Magic: The Gathering. Magic has a unique place in esports as its competitive calendar splits time between the new Arena digital product and the original, physical tabletop card game. This year, viewership was overwhelmingly stronger during Arena competitions, which have a more familiar production and viewer experience for Twitch viewers used to similar esports games like Hearthstone.
The most recent Arena competition, Mythic Championship VII, was one of the most-viewed Magic events of the year, generating 1.37M hours watched with a max CCV of 100.08K. This was the fourth-highest peak viewership for a Magic competition in 2019.
Jingle All the Way
Charity gaming marathons have historically performed well on Twitch. The combination of increased air time for the channel, collaboration across multiple streamer communities, and outside attention for a good cause tend to generate significant increases in both hours watched and max CCV.
The most recent recipient of this boost was Minecraft collective Yogscast, which has returned with its annual Jingle Jam charity drive. The channel generated 1.9M hours watched last week, broadcasting for more than 21 hours per day.
