Tabletop streaming coverage in Magic: The Gathering has always attracted less viewership than MTG Arena, but the EU regional Players Tour this past weekend hit an all-time low in peak viewership.
To change up major tournaments in Magic for the 2020 partial season, Wizards of the Coast removed tabletop Mythic Championships and replaced them with regional Players Tour tournaments and a Players Tour Final. Two of the Players Tour tournaments, Brussels and Nagoya, aired last weekend with a significant drop in peak viewership compared to tabletop Mythic Championships during the 2019 season.Â
Players Tour Brussels, with a total prize pool of $200,000, had a Twitch peak viewership of only 17,811, according to Esports Charts. The numbers were even worse for PT Nagoya (6,488), although the livestream was in Japanese. Compared to tabletop Mythic Championships that aired last year on Twitch, PT Brussels had around 10,000 fewer peak viewers.Â
- Mythic Championship VI: 29,451 peak viewership
- Mythic Championship IV: 27,515 peak viewership
- Mythic Championship II: 25,424 peak viewership
- Mythic Championship I: 55,552 peak viewership
A decrease in viewership for PT Brussels could be related to its air times, with coverage beginning at 2am CT. The prize pool for Players Tour tournaments is also smaller than the Mythic Championship events from last year. But the same top Magic players from around the world are competing.Â
The next and final MTG Player Tour tournament of series one will air this coming weekend in Phoenix from Feb. 7 to 9. Much like PT Brussels and Nagoya, it’ll feature gameplay in Pioneer Constructed and Theros: Beyond Death Booster Draft. The streaming times are significantly different, however, with coverage beginning at 10am CT.Â
