LoL Worlds 2023 Immediately Breaks Esports Viewership Record

A T1 matchup against Weibo Gaming took place in the League of Legends World Championship 2023 Grand Final. T1 won the decisive Best-of-5 with a commanding 3-0 score, and the match also attracted the largest concurrent audience in esports history: Peak Viewers: 6.4 million.

The popularity of Worlds events has been rising yearly, but many were taken aback by the sudden surge to 6.4 million concurrent spectators. The event genuinely elevated the bar for esports viewing as seen by the brand-new viewership record that shook the scene. So how did League of Legends manage to present the most watched Grand Final match in the history of the industry and create a new milestone for esports viewership?

First off, there’s no denying that the Worlds series is the most well-liked esports tournament series globally. Ever since its inception, Worlds has consistently been the most anticipated esports event of the year. The popularity of League of Legends, the matchup between international rivals, and the possibility of a winner-take-all championship combine to produce a potent concoction for spectators.

Watching numbers for world events have been rising nearly yearly. Every year, the tournament gets bigger and better, and if the 2023 Worlds final didn’t break the record for esports viewership, it was probably going to in one of the years that followed. What else, other from the success of the event series itself, helped make Worlds 2023’s record-breaking viewership possible?

Growing regional audiences supported Worlds 2023

Growing regional viewership was one important aspect for Worlds 2023 attendance. League of Legends is expanding very swiftly in certain parts of the world, despite the fact that detractors of all esports disciplines prefer to whine about dead games. Among the most significant sources of spectators for Worlds 2023 were Vietnamese broadcasts. 

The LoL circuit’s Vietnamese VCS regional league saw a 19% increase in watch time before to Worlds 2023. More Vietnamese fans than ever before are watching their local League of Legends competitions, and they showed their growing passion for the sport at the Worlds tournament. Throughout the Group Stage, broadcasts in the Vietnamese language broke records for the language; on occasion, they even outperformed English broadcasts in terms of popularity.

Following their demonstration of the region’s capacity for watching during the Group Stage, Vietnamese supporters did not let up. The biggest Vietnamese esports audience ever recorded, 805.3K Peak Viewers, watched the Worlds 2023 Grand Final. In addition to this accomplishment, Japanese feeds saw the largest peak viewership of any League of Legends event ever. 

Another location seeing progress in its regional circuit is Japan; the country of the rising sun sent 155.5K Peak Viewers to the Worlds 2023 Grand Final. On the other hand, Japanese fans favored to watch the event through community casters, while Vietnamese viewers accounted for the great majority of their attendance on the official Vietnamese-language broadcast during Worlds.

More community casters

Riot Games declared in 2022 that community casters would be permitted to cover the Worlds 2022 tournament. The choice turned out to be a wise one, and it played a big part in making the competition the first Worlds event to surpass 5 million PV. But since 2022 would be the first year community casters would be permitted, there weren’t many streamers on the list who were approved to broadcast the event. 

In 2023, the roster of community casters was expanded to include more streams who were permitted to cover the event. In comparison to the previous year, there were almost 150% more community casters covering Worlds 2023. It is noteworthy that, aside from certain specific events, official broadcasts continue to be the most widely watched method of watching the Worlds.

There were no Japanese community casters allowed to cover Worlds 2022. Forward to 2023, and a wide range of Japanese live-streamers were present to cover the proceedings. Even while PV for the official riotgamesjp channel was 30% lower than in 2022, Japanese viewers at Worlds 2023 were 128% more popular than in 2022. 

Riot Games’ new perspective on community casters was the reason behind the surge in Japanese viewership at Worlds 2023, rather than the discipline’s growth. Not only did the new community casters rules help the Japanese, but more than half of the Spanish Peak Viewers figure came from ibai’s broadcast. 

On the last day of Worlds, community casters were out in full force, and during the Grand Finals, over 50 separate unofficial broadcasts were captured on various platforms. Millions and millions of Hours Watched were produced by these channels, which significantly boosted the event’s peak audience. At Worlds 2023, community casters contributed to almost 22% of the Peak Viewers registered during the Grand Final.

Korean home game against China

It goes without saying that the narrative surrounding the World Cup 2023 Grand Final had a significant impact on the event’s large audience. When Gen.G, the top-seeded Korean team, fell short against the #2-seeded Chinese team Bilibili Gaming in the quarterfinals, the fans were taken aback. Many people picked Gen.G to win the whole thing, and it appeared as though one of the four Chinese teams in the Playoffs would undoubtedly win another championship.

The event got off to a rather rough start for T1. With a 3-1 record, they advanced through the Group Stage, however, they were defeated by their primary rivals, Gen.G. It appeared like T1 would not be able to defeat the Chinese teams in the Worlds 2023 Playoffs if Gen.G was unable to.

There have been Chinese-Korean Grand Final matches at Worlds in 2020 and 2021. Chinese and Korean teams frequently compete in the Worlds finals. When the Korean Dplus KIA roster emerged victorious from Worlds 2020, held in China, the rivalry between the two regions has only grown more intense. 

Fans knew that this encounter would be unforgettable when it was revealed that T1 would face Weibo Gaming in the Worlds 2023 Grand Final. Weibo Gaming might perhaps repay Worlds 2020 by winning a global championship in their opponent’s territory, while T1 could potentially win their fourth world title by virtue of having a home stadium advantage. 

T1 is already one of the most well-known teams in esports, but the roster reached new heights when they had the whole country of Korea rooting for them in the stadium and turning into the Korean region’s last chance for a world championship. With 2 million Peak Viewers during the Grand Final, Korean esports viewership set a new record. During the match, AfreecaTV, a live-streaming platform from South Korea, also achieved a new Esports Peak with 534K PV.

Korean viewers were excited to see T1 and Faker win their fourth global title together, as they showed their support for the team and their fan favorite. But audiences outside of Korea were also cheering for their squad. Weibo Gaming received support from Chinese followers on Huya and other Chinese live-streaming platforms. According to Heat Index, the Worlds 2023 Grand Final peaked at 144.2M, making it the second-most popular event in the series overall. With a peak Heat Index of 251.6 million, the 2021 Grand Final saw EDward Gaming win the world championship for the region, making it the most-watched Worlds match on Chinese live-streaming platforms ever.

The battle between two Asian areas is obviously far from ending, as evidenced by the record-breaking Korean viewership during the Worlds 2023 final. The competition between these two regions will probably not go away, and Worlds 2024 and other tournaments in the future will only serve to increase viewership.

In conclusion, a number of factors contributed to the increase in Worlds 2023 viewership. A significant amount of the event’s overall viewership through the official broadcasts came from developing nations like Vietnam. Riot Games’ decision to relax regulations and enable an increasing number of community casters from different areas to watch the tournament with their followers also played a significant role in the event’s audience. 

The narrative around Faker and T1 at Worlds 2023 increased attendance to a level never seen before. The fact that Faker was up against a Chinese squad only made Chinese and Korean fans more eager to watch to see which area would win. Fans from all over the world tuned in to see if Faker could win his fourth world title.