Streams Charts continues to sum up the year 2022 on Twitch. In our new article, we will tell you which sports games and categories were the most watched on the platform, and which of the streamers had the greatest impact on their viewership statistics.
FIFA 22 was the most watched sports game of the year on Twitch, amassing 211.2 million Hours Watched. The football simulator by Electronic Arts has been released annually since 1993 and is very popular both with players and viewers. FIFA 23 was released in September 2022, but ranked only third, amassing 136.8 million Hours Watched over a few months.
The Sports category is in second place. It accumulated 194.2 million Hours Watched over the year, and the largest leap in the category was after the start of the FIFA World Cup in November. Rocket League, which is a unique hybrid of arcade car racing and football simulator, ranks fourth. It amassed 127.2 million HW in 2022 — most of which were accounted for by viewers of esports leagues.
Chess rounds out the Top 5 sports games of the year with 66 million Hours Watched. Broadcasts of major championships were especially popular, as well as broadcasts of Hikaru Nakamura (GMHikaru) and other grandmasters. The Poker category (6th place), where tournament and sponsor broadcasts were the most popular, had 12.8% fewer Hours Watched in 2022.
The basketball simulator NBA 2K22 ranks seventh, amassing slightly more than 30 million HW over the year. The most recent game in the series, NBA 2K23, released in September 2022, is in ninth place with 27.3 million HW. Car racing simulators TrackMania and iRacing are in eighth and tenth places in the ranking, accumulating 29.7 million and 17 million HW, respectively.
The Brazilian streamer Casimito became the most watched sports streamer of the year on Twitch. He accumulated 36.7 million Hours Watched, about half of which the streamer owes to the World Cup broadcasts. At the same time, the stream of the Brazil-Croatia match attracted almost 354K Peak Viewers — the best result of the year. We should note that Casimito streamed the same match on YouTube and has set a record for the platform's Peak Viewers.
The American streamer Castro_1021 is in second place with 19.35 million HW. He actively hosted FIFA broadcasts in 2022, reaching 151K Peak Viewers in January, after the release of TOTY in FIFA 22.
The Spanish sports journalist gerardromero, who actively follows the FC Barcelona life and shares the news with viewers, rounds out the Top 3. In 2022, he accumulated nearly 12 million Hours Watched, and the Peak Viewers number of 150K people was reached on September 1 — when the transfer window in Europe was being closed.
GMHikaru, the chess grandmaster who mainly broadcast chess games, racked up 11.9 million HW, ranking fourth. The streamers' PV number was 44.8K reached during the match against the multiple world champion — Magnus Carlsen.
The German streamer GamerBrother, who accumulated more than 9.1 million HW in sports categories, rounds out the Top 5. Despite the fact that the basis of his content is FIFA broadcasts, the Peak Viewers number of 81K people was attracted during F1 Streamer WM Tournament.
The American content creator runthefutmarket streamed mainly FIFA games and accumulated 8.7 million Hours Watched (6th place). His most popular broadcast of 2022 was FIFA 22, attracting 36.8K Peak Viewers. The Italian streamer ZanoXVII is right behind him, with 7.2 million HW, mostly thanks to FIFA. His PV number was reached after the release of TOTY in FIFA 22 and was 142.75K people.
The Norwegian streamer Wirtual takes eighth place in the ranking. The basis of its content was broadcasts of Trackmania. He amassed more than 6.6 million HW and attracted 27.8K PV during his first attempt to reach the finish line of one of the most difficult tracks in the game.
The Englishman Pieface23 and the Brazilian adolfz, who actively broadcast FIFA, are also in the Top 10. Over the year, the streamers amassed 6.2 million and 5.6 million HW, respectively. At the same time, during the opening of the TOTY packs in FIFA 22, Pieface23's PV number was 23.5K, while adolfz's total almost reached the 22.2K mark.
