- The Garena Free Fire Asia Championship had a peak viewership of over a million people
- The $400,000 event was eventually won by HQ Esports who took home $80,000
- At the same time, the $200,000 EMEA Invitational took place but failed to replicate the Asian tournament’s success
The Free Fire Asia Championship 2021 had a peak viewership of over a million, according to the esports statistic platform Esports Charts.
The Asian Event Got Over a Million People Concurrently Watching
Garena’s battle royale title, Free Fire, has just concluded its Asia Championship that went on between November 20 and 28. Despite the game still being somewhat overlooked in the West, it continues to score some remarkable engagement numbers in Asia.
Statistics from the Esports Charts show that the Free Fire Asia Championship 2021 managed to surpass one million concurrent viewers at its peak, topping at 1,089,311. The average viewership also wasn’t half bad, sitting at 357,209. Taking all viewers into account an estimated total of almost 4 million hours were watched collectively by fans of Free Fire who followed the action.
The championship eventually saw the Vietnamese team HQ Esports crowned as a winner. The victory was well-deserved as the athletes persisted and after seven heated games managed to score a total of 40 kills and get the “Booyah” three times. The players were rewarded well for their effort, taking home not only the champion title but the $80,000 lion share from the prize pool as well.
The EMEA Counterpart Had Less-Impressive Numbers
The Free Fire Asia Championship 2021 was a $400,000 regional tournament that was hosted in the wake of the Free Fire World Series cancelation. Sadly, the latter event had to be canceled because of the difficulties caused by the still ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. This isn’t a small setback as it prevented the game from being played on the global scene. Despite this, the favorable numbers in Asia show that the game and its competitive scene are still gaining popularity despite the COVID hurdles.
Although a global event couldn’t take place, Free Fire is proceeding to host various regional events across the world. Around the same time the Asia Championship was taking place, the EMEA region received its own regional tournament in the form of the EMEA Invitational 2021.
The event took place between November 20 and 27 and had a total prize pool of $200,000. It was eventually won by Trident Clan who took $50,000 home.
Although the EMEA Invitational had ten times lower viewership than the Asia Championship, with only about 100,000 peak viewers and about 32,300 average viewers, it still shows that Free Fire is gaining interest in the West, albeit at a slower rate.
