The Fall Split of the PUBG Mobile Club Open (PMCO) wrapped up last weekend with the Global Finals in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Southeast Asian team Bigetron Esports took home the trophy and $205,000.
The 13th match of the tournament on Miramar attracted the most viewers, peaking at 525,133 viewers, according to Esports Charts. And the average viewership of the tournament, which aired for around 40 hours, was 180,425. But these numbers are considerably lower than the last PMCO Global Finals.
The Spring Split Global Finals in Berlin peaked at 596,824 viewers and had a concurrent viewership of 221,491 people. Even though the total air time of the PMCO Spring Split Global Finals was six hours less than the Fall Split, the total hours watched was higher.
While the peak viewership hasn’t seen much of a decrease, the concurrent viewership of the Fall Split was over 18 percent less than the previous split.
It’s unclear why the viewership is down in the Fall Split even though both splits had the same regions and format. In fact, in the Fall Split, two regions expanded to cover more countries. The India region was changed to the South Asia region to also include other countries around India. The Middle East region expanded to North Africa to become Middle-East and North Africa (MENA). The only difference was that Taiwan didn’t receive a slot at the PMCO prelims in the Fall Split like it did in the spring. It’s unlikely, however, that this may have led to the decrease in viewers.
Despite these changes, the teams in the Global Finals didn’t change. Both teams from the South Asia region were from India, while a Middle-Eastern squad qualified from the MENA region.
PUBG Mobile esports isn’t slowing down, though. Tencent has revealed big plans for 2020 with leagues in South Asia, the Americas, and Southeast Asia. The total prize pool for 2020 is expected to be over $5 million.
