The PUBG Mobile Global Championship (PMGC) season zero kicked off its league stage today. This is the first global event for the mobile battle royale game since the PUBG Mobile Club Open (PMCO) fall split global finals in December 2019.
Even though the PMGC is an online event, thousands of fans tuned in to watch the first day. The livestream peaked at 861,481 viewers, according to Esports Charts. This is a significant improvement from the PMCO 2019 global finals, which peaked at 525,133 viewers.
Related: How to watch the PUBG Mobile Global Championship season zero
The average for the six matches on the first day was 499,690 viewers, but this number will likely decrease as the league stage of the PMGC progresses over the next month.
The viewership numbers were especially promising considering Indian teams are not competing in the event. PUBG Mobile was banned in the country on Sept. 2 due to alleged data security violations. India was one of PUBG Mobile’s biggest regions, accounting for 770 million downloads, according to a report by Sensor Tower.
Related: PUBG Mobile esports will have a $14 million prize pool in 2021
This ban took a huge toll on the PMPL South Asia viewership, though, which witnessed an 87 percent drop in average viewership, according to Esports Charts. It seems that many Indians have tuned into the Global Championship even though their local players will not be dropping onto the battlefield.
The peak viewers of the PMGC are still far from the most-watched event in PUBG Mobile history, the World League (PMWL) East. This peaked at 1.1 million in the finals, according to Esports Charts. Given the hype today and the possibility of the PMGC finals being an offline event in January 2021, this record could also be broken soon.
Correction Dec. 2 6:30am CT: Nimo TV’s viewership numbers were inaccurate, which initially led to Esports Charts showing the peak for this event on the first day to be at 861,481 . Esports Charts now shows a total of 564,213 peak viewers for this event on Nov. 27. We regret this error. This article will be updated if more information about the viewership statistics becomes available.
