The esports industry relies heavily on meticulous planning and timing, particularly when it comes to tournament schedules. The modern esports landscape adheres to a structured format, with each discipline featuring its seasonal framework. This includes major leagues, tournaments, and world championships meticulously planned out month by month. Such precision in planning aids teams in effectively managing sponsorships, coordinating training schedules, and implementing roster changes. Additionally, players are provided with advance notice of the season's schedule, facilitating the organization of vacations during breaks between tournaments.
Furthermore, clear scheduling is essential for fans to anticipate which days matches for specific leagues will take place. Typically, peak viewership occurs on weekends, when individuals are less occupied with work or school commitments. Esports Charts conducted an analysis of esports statistics for 2022-2023, evaluating the level of esports activity during weekends compared to other days of the week.
Sunday stands out as the most vibrant day in esports, encompassing over 25% of the total average weekly viewing time. Following closely, Saturday holds around 24% of the total, collectively accumulating roughly half of the esports watch time over the weekend. Conversely, other days witness fluctuating shares ranging from 6% to 16%, with values escalating as the weekend approaches.
A noteworthy deviation from this trend occurs on Monday, which gathers slightly more watch time than Tuesday. This anomaly arises from the methodology employed, utilizing the GMT zone in our analysis. Mondays often inherit some of Sunday's watch time due to ongoing tournaments that span the week transition; while it's Monday in Europe, Sunday matches are still underway in the United States.
The top 5 esports titles remain consistently popular throughout the week: League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Dota 2, Valorant, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. League of Legends typically dominates watch time, except on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when Counter-Strike takes the lead. This underscores the well-structured scheduling of regional League of Legends leagues, distributed across various weekdays to engage fans regularly.
Counter-Strike garners significant watch time from Monday to Thursday, ranging from 17.3% to 22.4%. Conversely, its weekend share diminishes to 10.6% to 13.1%, attributed to its protracted league format often commencing midweek, and major tournament finals, commonly held on weekends, facing heightened competition from other games.
While weekends are generally bustling across most titles, exceptions exist. Wednesday emerges as the pinnacle for Rainbow Six Siege esports due to a surge in popular matches of international tournaments scheduled on that day. Similarly, Wednesday gains prominence for Call of Duty: Warzone, attracting numerous third-party streamer events during the workweek.