The viewership numbers are down for the eleventh season of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League Philippines. Popular gaming content creator and streamer Setsuna “Akosi Dogie” Ignacio thinks he knows why.
Here is Akosi Dogie’s latest vlog in which he shares some insights on why fewer people are watching the latest season of MPL PH:
To summarize, Akosi Dogie cites a seeming lack of rivalry this season that would pique the interest of the fanbase and encourage them to keep watching. The absence of trash talk and toxicity may have also dampened the hype for Mobile Legends, but only to a negligible degree.
The biggest factor behind the decline in viewership, according to Akosi Dogie, is the return to normalcy before COVID-19. Though the pandemic is still an ongoing global health emergency, people have simply moved on and spent more time outside for work and other reasons.
“When I say rivalry, yung dalawang team mag-rival na gusto talagang panoorin ng tao. Wala na sa atin sa Pilipinas.” — Akosi Dogie
Statistics from analytics website Esports Charts show that the ongoing MPL PH Season 11 has 71,778 viewers on average and 8.4 million hours watched. So far, the season has reached a peak viewership of 250,738 viewers on February 25th, the lowest since season four.
The numbers do show that the excitement and hype over Season 11 are tepid compared to previous seasons and major events. Seasons 9 and 10 had 624,414 and 829,312 peak viewers, respectively. The 31st Southeast Asian Games back in 2021 had more than 2 million peak viewers.
The viewership numbers may still rise for the latest season though, as the playoffs in May draws near.