LEC Spring 2024 has continued the growth trend observed during the year's first LEC split. The Winter season marked the highest popularity in three years, and while the numbers have continued to rise in Spring, the growth rate is slightly more moderate this time.
The second split of the year has traditionally earned less viewership in the LEC compared to the first, and this was true again in 2024. However, compared to last year’s Spring split, 2024 is showing growth in viewership. The league suffered from a downturn in viewership during the past couple years, but this has stopped and transformed to steady growth this year.
The LEC Spring 2024 garnered 21.35M Hours Watched, a smidge fewer than last year. However, this was the only metric to be on a downturn compared to last year. The EMEA league has improved its Average Viewers to 265.5K in 2024, and it reached 593.5K Peak Viewers, roughly 21K more than last year.
The most popular match of the season was the Grand Final between G2 Esports and Fnatic. Fnatic have desperately been competing for an LEC title in past years, finishing within the top 4 teams in the region consistently for splits across the past three years. The matchup between the dominant G2 and aspiring Fnatic drew high viewership, although the other most popular matches of the event feature other teams.
Moving down from the grand final, both of the other two top matches featured Karmine Corp. KC advanced to the LEC through the regional French scene, and 2024 marks this debut year in the LEC. The team brings a huge following of French fans, but the roster failed to achieve success in the LEC in their first year.
The roster was supported by Kamet0, streamer and founder of Karmine Corp, on his personal Twitch channel. At peak, he contributed over 100K concurrent viewers to their matches. Despite the cheers of French fans, the team finished this year’s Spring split in last place, but nevertheless garnered 474K PV and 444.5K PV.
The Spanish MAD Lions KOI roster is also quite popular. The team is supported by their own content creator, ibai. Ibai is one of the world’s most famous creators, and he brings a significant personal audience to his team’s games. Even Fnatic were supported by Caedral, a popular League of Legends content creator who signed with Fnatic as an official co-streamer earlier this year.
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Of the five teams that appear in this ranking, the majority of them represent the support of a large monolingual audience. As outlined above, many streamers and content creators are supporting teams through their matches, and these teams benefited greatly from this coverage.
Although, some teams appeared within this ranking with seemingly less of a connection to content creators. Some established brands and communities within the EMEA League of Legends scene are able to compete with these new teams when it comes to viewers
Viewership of the last three years of the LEC, Hours Watched & Peak Viewers
Across past years, the LEC has struggled with declining viewership, and not finding a foothold to stop the decline. 2024 has been this foothold so far. The league has enjoyed a revival in viewership, recording higher viewership compared to the previous year and healthy metrics.
The expansion to the entire region of EMEA also bodes well for the circuit. As the Pacific region in League of Legends is currently proving, expanding your league to include more territories and target more demographics can be significant for viewership. The PCS has already begun to enjoy the benefits of these expansions, and the EMEA is benefiting from fresh blood in the LEC as of now.
