Community broadcasts accounted for 49.4% of all hours watched across 15 major esports tournaments that ended in the third quarter of 2026, up from 43.6% a year earlier. Official channels lost 5.4% in the same period, while Counter-Strike showed why more hours do not always mean a bigger audience.
The figures come from a new report by Esports Charts, which compared the 15 events with their 2025 editions. Co-streams grew by 19.7%, more than three times as fast as total viewing.
| Hours watched | 2025 editions | 2026 editions | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official broadcasts | 289.6M | 274.0M | -5.4% |
| Co-streams | 223.7M | 267.7M | +19.7% |
| Total | 513.3M | 541.7M | +5.5% |
| Co-stream share | 43.6% | 49.4% | +5.8 points |
Co-streaming grew by more than 3% at 12 of the 15 events. Eight of them also held or grew their official viewing, while four saw the official feeds drop by more than 3%. A bigger co-stream share did not always mean a bigger audience. At the MLBB Mid Season Cup, co-stream hours rose 20.3%, but official hours fell 23.3% and the total dropped 12.6%. Esports Charts stresses that its data shows how much viewing co-streamers capture, not whether they bring in viewers who would otherwise not have watched.
Counter-Strike: more hours, smaller average crowd
Two Counter-Strike events are in the sample, and they point in different directions.
BLAST Open Fall 2026, won by Spirit after a 3-1 final against MOUZ, had the second largest increase in co-stream hours of all 15 tournaments, just behind the PUBG Mobile World Cup. Total hours and average viewers went up as well, while official watch time stayed essentially flat. The event finished with 23.7 million hours watched, 280,966 average viewers and a peak of 849,574 for the grand final, according to Esports Charts’ event page.
The Esports World Cup is the warning sign. Hours watched for the Counter-Strike event nearly doubled, from 14.0 million in 2025 to 26.8 million in 2026, but airtime grew from 41 to 91 hours. Average viewership fell from 341,020 to 295,431, a drop of 13.4%. The peak still went up, from 739,029 to 1,038,760, set during Spirit’s 3-1 win over FUT in the final.
In other words, the longer schedule produced the extra hours, while fewer people watched at any given moment. For the bigger picture, Counter-Strike drove global esports to a record 3.3 billion hours watched in 2025, and ESL Pro League Season 24 became the fourth most-watched season in league history in October.
