The most popular esports games, by the numbers
"Most popular" depends on the metric — peak concurrent viewers for one match, total hours watched across a tournament, or prize money on the table. Here's how the biggest titles compare on each, and what live data is available for each one.
By peak concurrent viewers
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang's M7 World Championship grand final peaked at roughly 5.68 million concurrent viewers, the largest single-match audience of its cycle. CS2's IEM Cologne 2026 Major set a new all-time record for the title at roughly 2.75 million peak. Valorant Champions 2025's final reached about 1.47 million — the third-highest peak in VCT history — with Champions 2026 underway now (through October 18, 2026) and League of Legends Worlds 2026 starting October 15, 2026.
By hours watched
League of Legends still leads most years on total hours watched — Worlds 2025 logged over 136 million hours across nearly 90 hours of airtime. A tournament that runs for weeks accumulates more total watch time than a single-day grand final, even one with a higher single-match peak.
By prize pool
The Esports World Cup 2026 carried a $75M total prize pool spread across 24 games — the largest esports event ever staged. Individual tournament totals move year to year; Dota 2's The International 2026 base pool sat at $1.6M before crowdfunded additions.
Live data for all of them
KashRock covers CS2, Valorant, League of Legends, Dota 2, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and Deadlock from one API and one key — matches, live scores, player stats, and DFS props where the market exists.
See the full coverage matrix, or start on the quickstart.