Over the next few days, Grandmasters 2021 Season 2 should be continuing for multiple regions. Accordingly, at this time of year, we’re feeling somewhat reflective over the state of competitive Hearthstone. Let’s dive right into the past year of competitive Hearthstone 2020/21.
This Time Last Year – Hearthstone Stagnating?
Roughly this time 2 years ago, before the competitive season relaunched, a change hit competitive Hearthstone.
Indeed, at this time, Blizzard announced an exclusive esports viewership deal with YouTube. All of their assets, including competitive CoD and also Hearhtstone began broadcating exclusively here.
We’re mentioning this point as the community argues that it’s this point in time which resulted in a reduction of viewership. Supposedly, by moving to a different platform, the viewership was affected.
Let’s take a look ourselves by going through the past competitive year of events!
Fact Sheet – The Best Hearthstone Esports Events Over the Year – Competitive Hearthstone 2020/21
As always, we’d like to first thank Esports Charts for all of the viewership details which are made publically available for these events.
Although we can’t list every event, we’ll be sure to cover the entire calendar year.
Grandmasters 2020 Season 2 Asia-Pacific – August 2020
- $90,500
- Online
- Peak Viewers – 18,600
- Average Viewers – 9,382
Moving to one of the more notable events, the Grandmasters series is a seasonal event involving the highest tier competitors.
Lasting over a few months or two, the event takes place across multiple regions. Indeed, what we’d like to point out is that the APAC region quickly began climbing as the region with the most viewership overall.
Masters Tour 2020 Madrid – October 2020
- $250,000
- Online
- Peak Viewers – 12,187
- Average Viewers – 9,018
Skipping to October, the Masters Tour 2020 Madrid was the final event of the series last year. Involving both Grandmasters and random competitors, it keeps things very fresh and exciting.
However, viewership here is struggling majorly and was a main point of improvement for the competitive year 2021.
Hearthstone World Championship 2020 – December 2020
- $500,000
- Online
- Peak Viewers – 89,246
- Average Viewers – 23,286
Yet, this was all made up for with the Hearthstone World Championhip 2020in December.
Following an intense year of competition, like other esports, Blizzard puts it all on the line for the best competitors in the world.
However, viewership this year was quite abysmal compared to last. Although the 2019 event offered a peak viewership of 276,000, the viewership is seriously down at the largest event of the year.
Perhaps being online affected this outcome.
Masters Tour Ironforge – March 2021
- $250,000
- Online
- Peak Viewers – 11,527
- Average Viewers – 7,525
Starting off the 2021 season of the Masters Tour, Ironforge would try and switch things up.
However, the event failed to bring anything new to the table, and viewership for this type of event was typically at the same spot as the 2020 season.
Masters Tour Orgrimmar – April 2021
- $250,000
- Online
- Peak Viewers – 20,656
- Average Viewers – 14,833
Yet, in the next event, things looked much brighter as down in April, Blizzard managed to drive a small increase in viewership at the Masters Tour Orgrimmar in April.
However, a greater increase in viewership is expected.
Grandmasters 2021 Season 1 EMEA – March/June 2021
- $11,500
- Online
- Peak Viewers – 19,405
- Average Viewers – 9,578
Kicking off the Grandmasters season once again for 2021, this time around viewership shifted to the European region in terms of a peak.
Lasting two months, the event once again failed to achieve major improvements from last year.
Masters Tour 2021 Dalaran – June 2021
- $250,000
- Online
- Peak Viewers – 12,207
- Average Viewers – 8,764
Back to the Masters Tour event, there isn’t much to discuss here. Once again, no surprising numbers here – is Hearthstone at a standstill?
Masters Tour Silvermoon – August 2021 – Competitive Hearthstone 2020/21
- $250,000
- Online
- Peak Viewers – 15,278
- Average Viewers – 11,779
The last event on the calendar so far, Silvermoon was the last event to try and impress us. However, once again, the Masters Tour events fail to break 20,000 peak viewers.
A Rough Season – Improvement Needed
As you can see, this past season of competitive Hearthstone has hardly been impressive.
With numbers much lower than last year, Hearthstone is lagging behind – especially since no offline events have been held in the process.
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