Estral Esports helped boost LLA to a series viewership record for opening splits

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The first 2024 split of the Liga Latinoamérica for League of Legends esports recently hit a new record peak viewership for the opening split of the year. The LLA Opening 2024 reached over 100,000 concurrent viewers for its Grand Final between Movistar R7 and Estral Esports, but general viewership throughout the entire season is declining. 

The 2024 split became the most popular Opening split the LLA has ever seen, but average viewership is on a downturn compared to the previous year. 2024 marked the first year that the league has featured fewer than 8 teams, after Team Aze’s dispersion. The team’s disbandment came late into the offseason, and it appears the LLA could not find a willing replacement for the team. Fans have speculated the high costs of moving an esports team to Mexico and competing in the split were contributing factors.

Following on the wild success of the Closing 2023 split, the LLA is featuring the fewest teams ever, and yet peak viewership is up thanks to one key participant. 

LLA Opening 2024 Viewership Statistics

Compared to last year’s Opening split, the Opening 2024 league recorded an increase in both watch time and peak viewership. The 2024 edition received 103.4K Peak Viewers for its Grand Final between Movistar R7 and Estral Esports, and generated 2.63M Hours Watched throughout its 11 week schedule. However, critically, the average viewers metric highlights a drop in interest for the league. Despite reaching a peak viewership far ahead of the previous season, the Opening 2024 split recorded only 20.4K AV, roughly 4K fewer viewers on average than last year’s split.

The league’s increase in watch time is largely due to the fact that this year’s Opening split was the longest-broadcasted LLA split ever. The split was broadcast for over 128 hours, beating out the Opening ‘19 split which previously held the record at 127 hours of Airtime. 

The simultaneous increase to peak viewership and decrease to average viewership highlights a trend that is ubiquitous in modern esports: fans are becoming increasingly more interested in supporting a particular team rather than following the league as a whole. So, which team was at the core of the LLA’s increased popularity?

  Most popular matches of the LLA Opening 2024 by peak concurrent viewership   

As mentioned, the most popular match of this year’s opening split was its Grand Final. However, the most popular matches of the split all featured the same two teams: Movistar R7 and Estral Esports. The jump from the second-most popular match to the most popular was also quite dramatic; comparing the two teams’ Playoffs Day 5 match to the Grand Final, peak viewership increased by 68%. The viewership was also boosted by former professional player Baiano. The Brazilian was covering the CBLOL playoffs before tuning into the LLA Grand Finals, and although the residual viewership from his CBLOL coverage was extremely high, it was continuously dropping throughout the LLA match. 

Between these two rosters, Estral Esports was significantly more popular. Founded in 2019, Estral Esports quickly ascended through the regional League of Legends scene in Latin America, before acquiring a spot in the LLA in 2021. The team impressed in their first year in the LLA, finishing 2nd at the Closing split in 2021.

Estral Esports have quickly risen to the top of the LLA as a dominant force, overthrowing Movistar R7, who were previously the most competitive team in the region. The LLA Opening 2024 split marks Estral Esports first ever LLA title, and it will likely not be their last. Their popularity was instrumental to the league’s peak viewership; in fact, all of the ten most popular matches of the LLA Opening 2024 split featured Estral Esports.

  Most popular LLA splits by peak concurrent viewership   

The LLA Opening 2024 split became the second-ever LLA season to reach over 100K concurrent viewers. The 2023 splits for the LLA were the most popular on record, with the Closing split reaching the highest PV ever recorded for the LLA, and the Opening split recording the highest AV for the LLA. The 2024 editions of these splits have some big shoes to fill, and as it stands the league may be able to capitalize on Estral Esports’ popularity to achieve this.

The LLA Closing 2024 split will begin after the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational. As the current Opening split champions, Estral Esports have secured their spot at the invitational event, and their presence at the tournament will likely bring a sizable Latin American audience to the tournament. For the second split of 2024, the LLA will hopefully be focusing on bringing another team into the league and working on remedies for the falling average viewership the league is experiencing.