Most popular esports leagues and circuits in 2021

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As a part of our yearly recap series, Esports Charts presents the list of professional esports leagues and circuits that accomplished the best viewership results in 2021. 

Disclaimer: Viewership statistics used for the purpose of this article included only results from the regular seasons of each respective league. Data from final events (such as Valorant Champions, BLAST World Final, DPC Majors & TI), as well as data from Chinese streaming platforms were not taken into account. 

Top esports leagues in 2021

#10 RLCS 

The Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) has come through multiple changes in 2021, as Psyonix at first split the tournament structure into three seasons, with regional majors for North America, Europe, and Oceania. However, the developer then decided to unite the regions once again during the RLCS 2021-22 Fall Split Major. Despite the fact that these structural changes were quite radical, they had minimal impact on the viewership of the league. 

In 2021, RLCS generated over 50M Hours Watched. The highest peak was recorded during the RLCS Season X Winter EU Major when more than 225K concurrent viewers spectated the match between Renault Vitality and BDS.

#9 LCS

The start of the 2021 season wasn’t the most successful for LCS, as it was the only league among the top-tier regional League of Legends circuits that reached lesser viewership numbers than in 2020. Although viewers returned for LCS Spring playoffs, the league was still far behind LEC. In summer, the LCS viewership kept declining when compared to the previous split, but the audience gap between the league and its European counterpart shrank.

The LCS generated 58.13M Hours Watched in 2021, with the highest peak of 415.7K Peak Viewers reached during the grand final of Liquid LCS Spring 2021. 

#8 BLAST Premier

In its relatively short existence, BLAST Premier CS:GO circuit has quickly become one of the biggest and most popular professional CS:GO leagues. With 59.37M Hours Watched accumulated throughout 2021, the league has seen 30% growth in viewership, closely catching up on currently still leading ESL. The highest number of concurrent viewers — 861.3K Peak Viewers — tuned in to the NAVI vs. Team Vitality match during the BLAST Premier Fall 2021 Finals. 

#7 ESL Pro League

On the contrary to the rising BLAST, ESL Pro League showed a significant decline in viewership in 2021. During Seasons 13 and 14, the league generated 61.97M Hours Watched, which is 20.3% less than in 2020. Despite the large number of popular teams among participants, EPL was unable to keep up with its own numbers and the viewership kept declining also between the seasons. The highest peak occurred during the ESL Pro League Season 14, when over 758.5K concurrent viewers tuned in to spectate the season’s grand final. 

#6 Valorant Champions Tour

The Valorant esports circuit was, thanks to Riot Games’ reputation, expected to be a success from its beginning, and it’s exactly what’s been happening in 2021, with Valorant overcoming CS:GO. The viewership of the Valorant Champions Tour has been gradually increasing throughout the year, although the biggest viewership records were reached during the league’s final events. The league's viewership is greatly affected by community casting, as many prominent Twitch streamers tend to tune in to cast VCT matches. However, this applies mostly to North America.

The regular season of the Valorant Championships Tour 2021 accumulated 69.39M Hours Watched, peaking at 363.5K concurrent viewers during the VCT 2021 North America Stage 1 Masters. 

#5 LEC 

The European League of Legends scene is doing great in terms of popularity, as the viewership results of the LEC suggest. During the most recent summer split, the league has become the most watched regional LoL league (by HW). With 77.74M Hours Watched garnered throughout 2021, the league’s viewership increased by 6.3% compared to the previous year. The LEC Summer 2021 also saw the highest volume of spectators — more than 843.4K Peak Viewers watched the playoff match between G2 and Fnatic. 

#4 DPC

Dota 2 Pro Circuit changed a lot since the pre-pandemic time. The previous year started with a series of changes to the DPC's tournament structure, as Valve decided to reduce the number of majors and replace regional qualifiers with regional leagues. The updated format caused an uproar among the esports community, yet it has positively impacted the league’s viewership. 

The DPC amassed 88.27M Hours Watched in 2021, with the highest peak of 353K concurrent viewers was reached during the DreamLeague Season 15 DPC Western Europe Upper Division. Even though DPC ranked higher than most top-tier LoL leagues, it would be inferior if compared with the combined viewership of these leagues. 

#3 PMPL

With the PUBG Mobile being hugely popular in Southeast Asia, the third most watched league of 2021 has become the PUBG Mobile Pro League with 125.66M Hours Watched generated in 2021. The final of PMPL S3 2021 SEA Finals attracted the highest number of people — 1.1M Peak Viewers. 

#2 LCK

Compared to 2020’s results, the Korean League of Legends league has dropped from the first to the second position among the 2021’s most popular professional esports circuits. However, with 135.24M Hours Watched garnered in 2021, LCK’s viewership decreased only by 1% and the league remained the best performing regional LoL league. The league peaked at 1.3M concurrent viewers during the LCK 2021 Summer final match between T1 and DWG KIA. 

#1 MPL

The first place is occupied by Mobile Legends:Bang Bang Professional League, which saw a massive growth in 2021. During the year, the league expanded to Cambodia and Brazil and grew even more thanks to its increasing popularity in Indonesia. The regular season of the league amassed 202M Hours Watched, showing 112% increase in viewership compared to 2020. The peak of 2.39M concurrent viewers was hit during the MPL ID Season 8. 

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