Viewership in the esports industry is largely devoted to the tournaments that take place throughout the year since these tournaments have the most competent and talented gamers versing each other to take home the enormous prize pool set. This is why millions of people invest their time, enjoying high-end competitions across different titles. Statista revealed in a survey that a total of 454 million viewers tuned in to watch these tournaments and amongst them the greater majority were dedicated, and passionate esports enthusiasts. The massive number of views isn’t concentrated around a single event or a single game. Each game contributes towards this achievement; however, some games do have the largest audience than their counterparts and therefore enjoy higher viewership rates. Since the format of each tournament and game is different it is harder to classify them into the same category and analyze them. Esports Charts, an analytical firm, has categorized the viewership into three main categories: Most Hours Watched Dominated by the 3 main Esports titles in the industry, League of Legends, Dota2 and Counter Strike

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Average Viewers No surprise the Fortnite World Cup features

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Peak Viewers A strong and obvious presence for League of Legends, with the Fortnite World Cup Finals featuring in second.

Image via Esports Charts

Based on these three major categories, we can derive the 5 most viewed esports events of 2019, as well as compare them to the figures of last year, explicitly defining the growth of the esports industry. Read more: Who's earned the most winnings from $700m in Esports prizes awarded? 1. League of Legends World Championship At number one is The World Championship which took place in three of Europe’s famous cities: Berlin, Germany; Madrid, Spain; Paris, France. 24 teams were given the opportunity to face off for the $2.2 million on the line. After a series of nail-biting matches, FunPlus Phoenix took home the crown. Peak Viewers: 3.9M (2019) vs 2.1M (2018) 85% increase

Hours watched: 137M (2019) vs 83M (2018) 65% increase

Average Viewers: 1 M (2019) vs 630,000 (2018) 58.7% increase 2. Fortnite World Cup 2019 Finals

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One of the most-watched and anticipated tournaments in esports history. It had a prize pool of $30,000,000. The main event was categorized into Solo, Duo, and creative modes. 16-year-old Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf outlasted 100 players alone for $3,000,000, while David “aqua” W. will split the prize money with his Dutch teammate Emil "nyhrox" Bergquist. Since this was the first version of Fortnite World Cup its statistics are compared to Fortnite Pro-AM 2018. Peak Viewers: 2.3M (2019) vs 2M (2018) 15% increase

Hours watched: 22.7M (2019) vs 10.7M (2018) 112% increase

Average Viewers: 1.15M (2019) vs 1.2M (2018) 2.5% decrease Read more: The Best Competitive Classes to Use in Modern Warfare 3. Free Fire World Series 2019 Rio The most viewed mobile esports tournament of 2019 and the only mobile tournament to make it to the top 5. Garena’s mobile battle royale was played in Rio de Janeiro, where the players competed for a prize pool of $380,000. The tournament was surprisingly broadcasted in 10 different languages. Team Corinthians earned themselves a victory on their home ground. Since this tournament was introduced this year, its statistics will be compared to those of Arena of Valor World Cup 2018. Peak Viewers: 2M (2019) vs 480,000 (2018) 316% increase.

Hours watched: 7.6M (2019) vs 10.7M (2018) 30% decrease

Average Viewers: 1.2M (2019) vs 160,000 (2018) 650% increase. 4. The International 2019: TI9 was the pinnacle of Dota 2’s competitive season with the top 18 battling for the world title. This year’s event broke two records: It was the most-watched event in the history of Dota 2; it had the highest prize pool in esports history. The event had a magnanimous prize pool of $34.3 million, and OG took home the largest share of the prize after defeating their rivals, Team Liquid. Peak Viewers: 1.9M (2019) vs 1.3M (2018) 46% increase.

Hours watched: 88M (2019) vs 64M (2018) 37.5% increase.

Average Viewers: 730,000 (2019) vs 530,000 (2018) 38% increase. Read more: Ninja Hacked on Twitter - Hacker Targets Tfue and KEEMSTAR

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