The Rocket League finals at the Esports World Cup drew in impressive viewership, beating the previous Raleigh Major.
The event held in Riyadh drew in a peak online viewership of over 230k, beating Raleigh’s peak of 218k.
Karmine Corp were crowned champions and claimed the $400k (£269k) top prize after defeating Geekay Esports in the final.
That victory will now have KCorp as the main favourites on Rocket League betting sites heading into the RLCS 2025 World Championships.
Viewership was certainly helped by KCorp’s strong fanbase and the fact that the team’s owner Kamel ‘Kameto’ Kebir co-streamed the finals.
However, that match wasn’t the most-viewed match of the tournament.
Instead, it was the intense semi-final between Team Vitality and Geekay, which went all the way to seven games.
Those stats are less surprising when you see the form one of the game’s greatest players, Team Vitality’s Alexis ‘zen’ Bernier, was in.
Still, the Esports World Cup couldn’t match the Birmingham Major from earlier in the year, which peaked at just under 291k peak viewers.
However, this year’s Rocket League EWC championship was significantly more popular than last year’s version.
The 2025 Esports World Cup almost doubled in Rocket League viewership under every metric compared to 2024.
The 230k destroyed last year’s peak audience of 99k. It had over 2.3m hours watched compared to 972k.
And this year’s Rocket League tournament at the Esports World Cup had an average audience of 76.5k compared to 2024’s 36k.
How does Rocket League’s viewership compare to the rest of the Esports World Cup?
There have been worries over Rocket League’s future, especially with rumours that Rocket League may move to Fortnite.
However, the game’s popularity and viewership for the esport remain strong.
Despite that, there’s no denying that interest in the 10-year-old game does seem to be slowly decreasing.
The real indicator will be the upcoming RLCS World Championship, with last year’s event peaking at over 426k viewers.
That was the third-highest in the esport’s history, with the 2023 finals leading the way with a peak audience of over 468k.
This year’s Rocket League tournament has so far attracted the Esports World Cup 2025’s 15th-largest viewership peak.
It’s way behind the mobile gaming behemoths of MLBB and PUBGM, which attracted audiences of 3m and 1.3m respectively.
Still, it’s ahead of football-based rival EA FC 25, which only mustered a peak of around 109k.
Rocket League also attracted larger audiences than Overwatch 2, Tekken 8, StarCraft 2 and the opening ceremony which featured Post Malone.
Instead, it sat just behind Apex Legends and Rainbow Six, which also both have healthy competitive scenes.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.