ALGS: 2022 Split 1 Pro League — APAC North viewership more than doubled

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ALGS: 2022 Split 1 Pro League ended in December, with five regions taking part in action: North America, South America, Europe, as well as APAC North and APAC South. Nearly all of the leagues saw an increase in audience reach over last year, with viewers from Japan being the most active.

The ALGS: 2022 Split 1 Pro League regional leagues open the new Apex Legends competitive season. They are the qualifying stages for the first major to be held in February. There, the best teams from five leagues will compete for million-dollar prize pools and ALGS ranking points. These points will later be used to determine the competitors for the World Championship. 

Regional Leagues Results

TSM won the North American tournament and advanced to the Playoffs along with nine of the strongest teams in their region. These were 100 Thieves, XSET, Luminosity Gaming and other teams, while OpTic Gaming, G2 Esports and FaZe Clan showed low results and did not make it to the final stage.

In North Asia, Fnatic won the title and, along with Crazy Raccoon, NORTHEPTION and other local teams, advanced to the Playoffs. In Europe, the Russian players from Aurora Gaming proved to be the strongest. Other teams in the Top 10 were Acend, Alliance, Vexed Gaming, GameWard and others, while Natus Vincere, FUT Esports and Gaimin Gladiators failed to qualify for the next phase.

South Asia and South America only had five playoff quota places, not ten like the other regions. Accordingly, the prize pool was not $125K, but half that amount, $62.5K. The winners in these regions were Team Singularity and Chicken Sandwich. 

Viewership Statistics

APAC North and North America are the most popular ALGS: 2022 Split 1 Pro League regions

Teams from South Korea and Japan competed in APAC North. The league totaled nearly 3.4 million Hours Watched and saw 76.2K Average Viewers along with 191K Peak Viewers.

Representatives from the U.S., Canada and Mexico, as well as several legionnaires from Australia and other countries, played in North America. Matches in this region racked up nearly as many Hours Watched as those in North Asia. The broadcast reached 162.3K Peak Viewers, and the Average Viewers number reached 90.6K — the best result of any of the regional leagues.

Both leagues were actively covered by community casters. For example, TSM_ImperialHal became one of the Top 3 most popular channels in both North Asia and North America. Other channels and streamers such as NICKMERCS, NiceWigg, and A_Seagull also reached impressive viewership. 

Japanese became the main broadcast language in APAC North — it accumulated 83.3% of the total HW and saw 137K PV. Second place goes to English (11.1% of HW total and 43.9K PV). The distribution of audiences by platform in this region was quite similar, with Twitch accounting for 54% of the HW total and YouTube accounting for 46% of the HW total.

In North America, the distribution was less diverse. English-language broadcasts accounted for an overwhelming 93% of the HW total, reaching 144K PV. Second place in popularity goes to Spanish with 3.4% of HW total and 8.3K PV. As for platforms, Twitch accumulated almost 90% of the total HW, while YouTube had about 10% of the number. 

Comparison of ALGS: 2022 Split 1 Pro League tournaments

As for other regional leagues, EMEA ranks third by audience reach with 1.8 million HW and 43K Average Viewers. South America became the most unpopular region, reaching only 3.3K AV.

Comparison with the Previous Season

 ALGS: Split 1 Pro League: 2021 vs 2022

Compared with last year, nearly all ALGS: 2022 Split 1 Pro League regional leagues saw an increase in Hours Watched. The North Asian league, in particular, saw a 115% increase, mostly because of the doubling of the Japanese broadcasts. The Japanese community has been showing a particular love for shooters lately. Now it is one of the fastest growing regions on the professional Valorant scene, but Apex Legends is no less popular here.

Europe (+11%), South Asia (+27%) and South America (+74%) also saw some progress, while North America, the biggest region in terms of viewership, was the only one that saw a decrease in the total number of HW. The decline, however, was not significant (-3%).

ALGS 2022: Split 1 Playoffs take place in February 2023. Respawn Entertainment has not yet announced the details of the event, but it is expected that it will be held in the LAN format. It is known that there will be 40 teams from five regions playing for a million-dollar prize pool.