The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) Mid Season Cup 2025 wrapped up on August 2nd, with Team Liquid PH clinching the title and a significant portion of the $3 million prize pool. The Esports World Cup is being held in Riyadh and this year’s edition saw nearly 3.1 million peak viewers, which is almost 700,000 more than the previous year.
As the hype fades away, a closer inspection of the viewership numbers uncovers why MSC 2025 is the third most-watched esports event of the year.
The Transformation and Expansion of MLBB Esports
In 2024, the Mid Season Cup became the game’s international in-season competition, taking the place of the Southeast Asia Cup in the calendar of Mobile Legends. It was the choice to host it in Riyadh, with a significantly-raised prize pool, that made it increasingly successful.
For many years now mobile esports have gained immense popularity in Southeast Asia. Yet, it seems that the involvement of the global multi-title Esports World Cup could kick up an interest in the west for MLBB. Big e-sports teams like Team Liquid, Fnatic, and Team Vitality are playing mobile games to do well in EWC.
Each day, the MSC’s debut in Riyadh attracted 406,638 viewers on average, with more than 29 million hours watched over the 72 hours. According to data from Esports Charts. AP.Bren versus SRG.OG Esports Grand Final reached up to almost 2.4 million viewers.
Insights from MLBB Mid Season Cup 2025 Viewership
The 2025 edition took place for an almost identical 84 hours, but during this time was rewarded with over 50 million hours viewed. Furthermore, its average viewership was almost 600,000 alongside its maximum viewership. The competition’s top four matches surpassed peak viewership of over two million.
The RRQ.H and SRG.OG clash in Knockout Stage was the highest viewership of the event. On the other hand, the Grand Final match, with Team Liquid winning, is the fourth most popular with fewer than 2.3 million peak viewers. The odd viewership numbers are also caused by strong teams like RRQ and ONIC who didn’t make it to the final.
The RRQ vs. SRG.OG series was quite competitive, unlike Team Liquid’s one-sided win in the Grand Final. SRG.OG came first in total watch hours of 17.1 million. Number two was ONIC with 13.2 million hours. Third place was the Philippine team 13.1 million. The teams of Liquid PH and RRQ followed with 12.6M hours and 7.8M hours.
RRQ became the MSC team with the highest average viewers with 1.3 million fans. Team Liquid PH followed closely behind with 1.2 million fans. SRG.OG and ONIC have similar average viewers numbers.
Since MLBB is a famous game in Southeast Asia, it is not surprising that MSC Indonesia Broadcast got the highest peak viewer of 1.97 million. English-language live streams ranked fourth, having garnered almost half as many viewers as Tagalog and Bahasa Malaysia streams. Twitch attracted the least amount of viewers in the West among streaming platforms. It had a peak tally of 17,268 viewers. In comparison, YouTube had 1.7 million viewers. Similarly, TikTok Live had 1.3 million viewers.
Comparing MSC 2025 to Other Esports Events
The high viewing numbers of MSC 2025 make it the ninth-most watched MLBB event of all-time, just behind the M2 World Championship with 3.083 million peak viewers.
The M5 Championship of 2023 had a peak viewership of 5.1 million of the genre.
Going even broader in the Space of Esports, the 2024 League of Legends World Championship is first-place in rankings with just under 7 million peak viewers. M5 is fifth, while MSC 2025 ranks 18th.
Despite this, MSC 2025 isn’t the highest-viewed midseason MLBB event on record. This record belongs to the 2023 Southeast Asia Cup. Even though this had a slight decrease in average views, the Grand Final saw 3.7 million viewers. It featured ONIC and Blacklist International.
What Drove the Popularity of MSC 2025?
Even with the same number of teams and prize pools, the 2025 MSC had a new format. While the Wildcard and Group Stages of 2024 had a round-robin format, the final phase was single elimination. However, 2025 brought single- and double-elimination brackets and essentially raised the stakes on all matches.
Moreover, in the 2024 MSC ONIC was eliminated in the Group Stage. It’s a team that regularly has many followers and was present in three of the top five matches in this event. ONIC left, at Peak Viewers was drop until Grand Final.