2017 eSports TV Ratings: FIFA on ESPN2, ELEAGUE Street Fighter Tops 300K

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2017 ESPORTS TV RATINGS: FIFA CHAMPIONSHIP ON ESPN2, ELEAGUE STREET FIGHTER TOPS 300K

Vitality Rockyy Wins the 2017 FIFA Ultimate Team Championship in Berlin (Photo: EA Sports)

Vitality Rockyy Wins the 2017 FIFA Ultimate Team Championship in Berlin (Photo: EA Sports)

TNL Take: After last week's EA Madden NFL's 2017 Championship on the NFL Network, this week saw EA's FIFA Ultimate Team 2017 Championship take place in Berlin on ESPN2 as well as ELEAGUE's Playoff Preview show for this Friday's Street Fighter V Invitational Playoffs.

Here's how they performed:

TNL Infographic 040: 2017 eSports TV Ratings (Infographic: The Next Level)

TNL Infographic 040: 2017 eSports TV Ratings (Infographic: The Next Level)

Vitality Rockyy (Photo: Team Vitality)

Vitality Rockyy (Photo: Team Vitality)

  • EA FIFA: After 32 players battled it out in Berlin over 2 days, Corentin “Vitality Rockyy” Chevrey won the 2017 FIFA Ultimate Team Championship taking home $160,000.  With a full season of competitive play, $1M+ dedicated to FIFA prize pools and a Saturday 11AM time slot on ESPN - still failed to draw a lot of viewers with only 40,000 total and 19,000 in the 18-49 demo.

For comparison, last years 2016 FIWC (FIFA Interactive World Cup) - the big FIFA finals if you will - drew 46,000 total viewers on Fox Sports 1, which has almost the same household penetration as ESPN2.

This year's 2017 FIWC will be provide a decent baseline to see EA's efforts in relation to TV viewership.

 

ELEAGUE's Street Fighter V Invitational Playoffs (Photo: Turner)

ELEAGUE's Street Fighter V Invitational Playoffs (Photo: Turner)

  • ELEAGUE Street Fighter: The fighting game continues to grow with this week's show hitting 330,000 total and 177,000 viewers in 18-49.  This makes it ELEAGUE's highest rated show for 2017 and the 4th highest rated show across their various programming since starting in 2016.  

The "preview/highlight" shows tend do perform well in addition to only being 1 hour and ending at 11 PM; which would help increase the viewer numbers as well.  

This weekend's playoffs will be another good test to see if can now beat the 350,000 viewer mark.

 

Including replays, 2017 has now seen 25 eSports programs on TV at the end of May - whereas 2016 saw 22 in total.