LEC Spring 2024 earned 35% more peak concurrent viewers than its predecessor
The second split of the LEC in 2024 has finished its regular season; the LEC Spring 2024 split has been substantially more successful than its 2023 predecessor in terms of viewership, although it has received less viewership than the year’s first Winter split, which is historically typical for the region. Teams founded by or backed by content creators have become the region’s driving force for viewership, as many of these creators also act as community casters for their teams’ games on Twitch.
League of Legends previously suffered from declining interest and viewership in the LEC after peaking at 1M PV for Summer 2020, but teams like Karmine Corp and the newly formed MAD Lions KOI have come to the rescue. Not only do these teams generate high viewership thanks to the community casts of their backers, but they also generate the highest viewership for the league’s unbiased official broadcasting partners.
LEC Spring 2024 Regular Season viewership statistics
Compared to last year’s Spring split, the LEC Spring 2024’s regular season has garnered substantially more viewership. Average concurrent viewership has increased by tens of thousands to 256.7K AV, but the most popular matches for the event have seen an even more impressive growth. The Spring 2024 regular season recorded 474K concurrent viewers at peak, an increase of more than 120K compared to last year’s split.
The regular season generated 10.57M Hours Watched in total, marking a slight decrease compared to the previous iteration. This decrease is due to the split being live for 12 hours fewer in 2024, not a drop in viewership or attention.
Compared to the Winter 2024 split, viewership is down though. This year’s Winter split earned 17.3M HW and 741.5K PV, but the year’s first split has usually achieved more viewership than the consequent events later in the year. The Winter 2024 split also made records by achieving the LEC’s highest average viewership on record, and if this split’s most popular teams can go far in the playoffs stage, it may become the second-most-watched LEC split on record by average viewership.
Fittingly, the most popular match of the LEC Spring’s regular season for 2024 was the Week 2 match between Karmine Corp and MAD Lions KOI which received 474K Peak Viewers. These two rosters have been critical for the region’s viewership, not only thanks to community casts from streamers involved with the teams but also general popularity.
Between the two top teams, the French team Karmine Corp is the more popular one. Although French-language viewership is on average slightly smaller than Spanish-language viewership, Karmine Corp outperformed MAD Lions KOI and was present in all three of the season’s most popular matches. The team’s Week 1 match against Fnatic received 444.5K Peak Viewers and their Spring debut match against GiantX received 399.7K PV.
Interestingly, Fnatic and GiantX are the only two teams in the LEC to feature 2 or more Korean nationals on their rosters. It’s difficult to track Korean viewership for the European league as there are no Korean-language broadcasts for the circuit, but perhaps these players are drawing viewership to the games. Fnatic signed popular League of Legends streamer Caedrel to their organisation in early 2024 as the official Fnatic co-streamer, and his support has brought a consistent viewership boost to the team’s games.
Critically, Karmine Corp finished the regular season in last place for the second Split in a row. The team will not compete in the split’s playoff and cannot bring their loyal fanbase to boost the league’s overall viewership. The LEC won’t be able to rely on KCorp for playoffs, so it will be interesting to see how the league can perform without them.
In terms of the most popular broadcasters in the league, it should come as no surprise that ibai and Kamet0 are at the top of this ranking. Ibai, one of Spain’s most popular content creators and a co-founder of KOI, has been supporting Mad Lions KOI through the entire season.
The Spaniard previously worked as a League of Legends caster, and his return to the game has been highly celebrated by Spanish-speaking fans. He was live for nearly the entire regular season, but his most popular stream was MAD Lion KOI’s match against G2 Esports, which received 140.4K Peak Viewers on his personal Twitch channel. G2 Esports are the reigning LEC champions, are fans were excited to see how MDK stack up against them.
Apart from ibai, the most popular broadcasters of the event were both French-speaking. Kamet0 is a founder of Karmine Corp, and his broadcasts of the regular season were highly watched. However, dissimilar to ibai, Kamet0 exclusively streamed Karmine Corp’s games throughout the season and was not live for any other matches. His team’s match against MAD Lions KOI was his most popular broadcast of the season, receiving 109.5K PV.
Lastly, the official French broadcasting channel for the LEC was the third-most popular option for fans for this split. Otplol_ received 93.4K Peak Viewers for their broadcast of Karmine Corp’s match against SK Gaming. Although a German esports organisation, their League of Legends roster features 2 French players, and the French derby was popular enough among French fans for it to become OTP’s most popular stream of the season.
