Who watched EWC 2026 co-streams? Audience demographics and key markets

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The audience for Esports World Cup 2026 community casts was global, young and highly diverse, but far from uniform. Streams Charts analyzed estimated audience geography and demographic profiles across selected EWC 2026 co-streaming channels, examining how watch time and audience composition varied by game and market. Official broadcasts are excluded. 

India leads a global audience with no single dominant market 

India emerged as the largest market for Esports World Cup 2026 community casting, despite the audience’s broad geographic distribution. India accounted for 12.2% of estimated co-streaming Hours Watched in the analyzed sample, largely driven by the PUBG Mobile World Cup 2026, where Hindi was the leading broadcast language.

The United States and Russia also ranked among the top three countries by community-casting Hours Watched. Together, the three leading markets accounted for only 32.1% of the total, while no single country contributed even 13%. No single country dominated the estimated co-streaming watch time covered by this analysis. France ranked sixth, accounting for 4.5% of estimated co-streaming Hours Watched.

English served as a global viewing language for the series rather than one limited to traditionally English-speaking countries. English-language broadcasts generated 30.4% of community-casting Hours Watched — far above the combined 16.9% share of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This suggests that a significant portion of English-language content was consumed outside these core markets.

At the same time, the language landscape remained highly diverse:

• Russian — 11.8%;

• Hindi — 7.3%;

• Vietnamese — 6.8%;

• French — 5.7%;

• Indonesian — 5.3%;

• Portuguese — 4.3%;

• Spanish — 4%.

English acted as EWC’s common international language, but nearly 70% of community-casting watch time still came from other language segments.

Who watches the EWC 2026 community casts? 

The estimated gender breakdown across the selected co-streaming channels was 88.9% male, 9.3% female, and 1.8% non-binary. 

Gender distribution varied by game. Counter-Strike had the most male-dominated audience, with men accounting for 91.9% and women for just 6.6%. Women accounted for a larger share of the audience in Chess and Fortnite, at 16.1% and 14.2%, respectively, while their share in Honor of Kings and PUBG: Battlegrounds was around 13.5%. 

Viewers in their twenties made up just over half of the estimated audience profile. The largest age group was 20–24 at 31.6%, almost twice the share of the 17–19 group. Those aged 35 and above accounted for 9.3%.

Students were the largest occupational group in the estimated audience profile, at 31.4%. They were followed by:

• White-collar professionals — 14.2%;

• STEM and IT professionals — 14.1%;

• Service and retail workers — 11.1%;

• Unemployed viewers — 6.4%.

Students, white-collar professionals, and STEM/IT workers together accounted for 59.7% of the occupational breakdown. 

However, the occupational breakdown varies from game to game. Students had an especially large presence in Free Fire and PUBG Mobile, accounting for 42.4% and 41.4% of their respective audiences. In Street Fighter, their share fell to 21.2%, while white-collar and STEM/IT professionals together reached 37.2%.

Each game has its own regional audience 

Among the five titles compared, PUBG Mobile had the highest combined share for its three leading countries: India, Nepal, and Türkiye accounted for 77.5% of estimated co-streaming Hours Watched. For MLBB Mid Season Cup 2026, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia contributed 73.6%.

Community-casting audiences were also regionally segmented in other major titles. Russia accounted for 35.6% of estimated Counter-Strike co-streaming Hours Watched, while Vietnam led the League of Legends breakdown with 30.4%.

Vietnam’s lead applies to the co-streaming channels analyzed here and should not be read as a ranking of the full EWC League of Legends audience.

Audience age and income vary sharply by game 

Among the games compared, Free Fire and PUBG Mobile had the largest under-20 shares, at 40.7% and 36.3%, versus 25.2% overall. Street Fighter and Chess had larger shares aged 30 and above, at 34% and 33.6%, compared with 20.6% overall. 

Estimated annual income profiles also differed substantially by game:

• Free Fire: 83.5% earned under $30,000, while 3.5% earned over $75,000;

• PUBG Mobile: 81% and 4.5%, respectively;

• Call of Duty: 43.5% and 19.8%;

• TrackMania: 42.9% and 19.7%;

• Chess: 60.1% and 15.7%.

Call of Duty and TrackMania had larger shares in the higher income brackets than Free Fire and PUBG Mobile. For campaign planning, these differences should be assessed alongside audience geography and local purchasing power. 

Different markets prefer different games 

MLBB accounted for 83.1% of Indonesia’s estimated EWC co-streaming Hours Watched. In India, PUBG Mobile and Free Fire together contributed 95.4%, while League of Legends represented 51.2% of the UK total.

Among the six markets shown, the United States had the lowest share for its leading game: Call of Duty accounted for 25.1% of estimated co-streaming Hours Watched.

These audience differences are critical when selecting creators for marketing campaigns. Streams Charts Discovery helps brands and agencies find streamers whose audiences match specific campaign goals. Users can filter creators across Twitch, YouTube, and Kick by audience geography, age, gender, interests, language, games, and other criteria — making it easier to reach the right viewers in the right market. 

One event, multiple audience profiles 

EWC co-streaming audiences differed substantially by game and market. For brands, the practical takeaway is to assess creators against the audience of the relevant title and country, rather than the event-wide demographic average.