Evo 2016: Street Fighter V Hosted 201k ESPN 2 Viewers
Despite the naysayers, more than 200,000 people tuned into ESPN2 to watch Street Fighter V Finals from Evo 2016.
If you had any doubt that competitive fighting video games wouldn’t be viable as a televised sporting event, just look at the stats. The TV viewing numbers for Street Fighter V Finals on ESPN2 this past weekend should indicate that the interest in its viewership.
While more than 2 million were watching yet another Sunday Night Baseball matchup between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees (one that finished in a comparatively breezy 2:57 runtime), over on ESPN 2 there were over 201,000 people watching Evo 2016 Street Fighter V Top 8 Finals for roughly the same amount of time.
When you add in over 213,900 people in peak concurrent viewership from Twitch on both the Evo 1 and Japanese streams, you have close to 415,000 watching Street Fighter V on ESPN 2 or Twitch at any given time.
Given the close to 147,000 viewers in the 18-49 demographic tuning in out of those 201,000 ESPN2 viewers, it would make for one of the Top 3 biggest TV ratings for eSports in the entire year.
What’s great about fighting games like Street Fighter V is that even if you don’t understand the depth of all the mechanics, there is an underlying closeness to boxing or MMA that makes the TV-viewing experience relatable to an audience. There’s no explaining what a Nexus is, or how to strategize hero picks. There’s one fighter, picking against another fighter, and skill makes up for the majority of the competition.
It’s why people like NBA legend Bill Walton can see the viability of Street Fighter V, Super Smash Bros. Melee and other fighting games, as well as the fighting game community’s tournament representation for a TV audience. It’s the passion, dedication and competition coming from an international community that spreads as far as Bahrain (with Bahrainian “TekkenMaster” getting as far as Grand Finals for Mortal Kombat XL) that explains why ESPN wanted to air the scene’s largest tournament on TV this year.
h/t Shoryuken