The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) Mid Season Cup 2025 concluded on August 2nd with Team Liquid PH taking the trophy and the lion’s share of its $3m (~£2.26m) prize pool.
Throughout its second iteration at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh, the Mid Season Cup (MSC) recorded nearly 3.1m peak viewers – almost 700,000 more than the previous year.
The MLBB Mid Season Cup replaced the former Southeast Asia Cup in 2024 as its first international in-season tournament of Mobile Legends’ competitive calendar. The event is also integrated into the Esports World Cup (EWC). This move to Riyadh saw the cup increase its prize money significantly from $300,000 in 2023 to a whopping $3m in the following year.
Mobile esports has achieved massive popularity within Southeast Asia for several years. But partnering with the EWC as a global multi-title esports competition has helped MLBB again further recognition among Western audiences and stakeholders.
Large Western esports organisations, including Team Liquid, Fnatic and Team Vitality, were incentivised to expand into mobile titles to earn more EWC Points and improve their chances at winning the event.
According to esports data platform, Esports Charts, MSC debuted in Riyadh with 406,638 average viewers and over 29m hours watched across its 72h airtime. During the Grand Final between AP.Bren and Selangor Red Giants OG Esports (SRG.OG), viewership peaked at nearly 2.4m.
The MLBB Mid Season Cup 2025 in Numbers
Despite a similar runtime of 84h, this year’s MSC edition garnered over 50m hours watched and almost 600,000 average viewers in addition to its higher peak viewership. Additionally, the 2025 competition managed to reach over 2m peak viewers across its top four most-watched matches.
Interestingly, it was a Knockout Stage series between RRQ.H and SRG.OG that attracted the highest viewership throughout the event. In comparison, the Grand Final between runner-up SRG.OG and Team Liquid PH became the fourth-most popular series of the MSC with under 2.3m peak viewers.
This unusual audience spread is likely due to the immense popularity of teams like RRQ and ONIC not advancing to the Grand Final.
Furthermore, the RRQ versus SRG.OG series (2-3) was among the most competitive matches within the high-stakes Knockout Stage. The Grand Final, on the other hand, was a dominant 4-1 sweep from Team Liquid.
While SRG.OG is the clear leader in terms of accumulated watch hours (17.1m), ONIC, as well as its second roster, ONIC Philippines, take second and third place with 13.2m and 13.1m hours watched, respectively. These organisations are followed by Team Liquid PH (12.6m hours watched) and RRQ (7.8m).
However, average viewer numbers among MSC teams sees RRQ at the top with 1.3m, followed by Team Liquid PH (1.2m), SRG.OG (1.2m), ONIC (1.1m) and ONIC PH (993,100).
Considering MLBB’s popularity in Southeast Asia, it is unsurprising that the Indonesian MSC broadcasts were the most popular (1.97m peak viewers). English live-streams (332,789) rank fourth on this list, recording nearly half the viewership of broadcasts in Tagalog (605,542) and Bahasa Malaysia (643,900).
Similarly, Twitch, as the prime streaming platform among Western audiences, captured only a small slice (17,268 peak viewers) of the tournament’s peak viewership. The majority of fans tuned into the YouTube (1.7m peak viewers) and TikTok Live (1.3m) broadcasts.
How Does the MSC 2025 Compare to Other Esports Events?
Such impressive audience numbers allowed the MSC 2025 to become the ninth most-popular MLBB tournament in history, only slightly behind the M2 World Championship with 3.083m peak viewers.
The all-time viewership record in this category was achieved by the M5 Championship, which recorded nearly 5.1m peak viewers in 2023.
When looking at event popularity across all esports titles, the League of Legends World Championship of 2024 takes the lead with just under 7m peak viewers. M5 currently sits in fifth while MSC 2025 is 18th on the list.
However, MSC 2025 is not the highest-viewed mid-season international MLBB event. This title goes to 2023’s Southeast Asia Cup. Although recording slightly lower average viewership, the 2023 competition saw almost 3.7m fans tune into the Grand Final between ONIC and Blacklist International.
Both teams have large followings within the MLBB scene, accumulating 20.3m and 16.7m hours watched for ONIC and Blacklist, respectively.
Why Was the MSC 2025 So Popular?
Although the 2024 and 2025 iterations of the MSC featured the same number of teams and similar prize pools, the event format was adjusted for this year’s competition.
In 2024, the Wildcard and Group Stages followed a round-robin format, with the top teams from each group advancing to the higher stages. Only the final Knockout Stage featured a single-elimination bracket.
This year, teams in every phase of the tournament had to fight through single- or double-elimination brackets, highlighting the stakes of each individual match.
Another factor was likely the early elimination of ONIC in MSC 2024’s Group Stage. The team has maintained a significant following throughout the past MSCs and Southeast Asia Cups and competed in three out of the five most-watched matches during the 2024 event.
Following ONIC’s elimination, peak viewership dropped until the Grand Final.